


Ten Years Gone

by drambuie11



Series: Province [4]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural
Genre: Crossover, Crossover Pairings, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-25
Updated: 2011-06-26
Packaged: 2017-10-20 17:50:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 28
Words: 106,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/215464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drambuie11/pseuds/drambuie11
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>SLASH. Dean/Xander. Sequel to Kashmir. Dean and Xander come back together, but will their various demons -- family and otherwise -- tear them apart again?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Million Miles

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Note: Story title from a song by Led Zeppelin. These characters are not mine, I make no profit from this, and didn't mean to infringe on any copyright. No specific spoilers, references to Supernatural season 1, Buffy seasons 7 and 8 (comics).
> 
> This story is part of a series and probably won't make sense without reading the others. Cross-posted at Twisting the Hellmouth.

**Saturday**

 

Rain was streaking the windows of the car, streetlights making the drops glow against the glass, as Willow and Xander drove back into Cleveland. Xander had been quiet for most of the ride, and he could feel the anxious looks Willow was casting his way.

But he had no idea what to say to her. Hell, he had no idea what to say to _himself_.

It was possible he was in some kind of shock.

It’d been a year since he’d last seen Dean. He’d travelled, worked hard, moved around, and tried not to think about it all. Succeeded, mostly. And sure, even his vacation had felt like work – having a good time sometimes felt like work – but he managed. Everybody had that black-hole feeling inside sometimes, right?

He’d come back to the hellmouth with low expectations. Giles had asked him to check in with Faith before he travelled to work with Buffy in Scotland. Willow was in town, he’d taken one short drive to the next county to pick up a spellbook for her, and he’d been pinned to a wall before he knew it, wondering what the hell kind of demon lived in the middle of nowhere, Ohio. And wasn’t it weirdly ironic that he got kidnapped by a demon the one day he left Cleveland?

Then the thing had started talking about Dean.

As soon as Xander heard his name, his heart had skipped a beat, then started hammering like it hadn’t in the longest time. When the demon said Dean loved him, _warmth_ had sparked in his chest.

Warmth that’d flared when he saw Dean’s face.

He didn’t believe it, of course. He knew the demon was lying, trying to fuck with his head, and hell, that pissed him off.

Because it didn’t stop his reaction. The second he’d seen Dean’s face, all the old feelings came rushing back. It was like the past year had never happened. A whole year of moving on, trying to convince himself he was fine, that it was fine, that shit happened, and he could deal with never seeing Dean again, gone. All he wanted was Dean.

He’d known the whole time that ‘moving on’ was a relative term, that part of him still thought about Dean sometimes, that he’d what-if-he-ran-into-Dean’d occasionally. But he’d never imagined his feelings for Dean were still so strong. He was still so much in love with Dean he could feel it, burning away deep inside him.

When Dean said ‘I miss you’, it’d sent a shard of fresh pain through him, and it was like he’d been transported back to that moment, that fucking phone call. It was like having a wound he’d thought had healed over suddenly start to bleed again.

No, that wasn’t right. It was more like he’d been bleeding the whole time, and hadn’t realised. Like nothing had felt right for the past year, and he just hadn’t let himself see it. Nothing except looking into Dean’s eyes and hearing him say ‘I miss you.’

Maybe that was why he’d been lying to himself; better to tell himself he was moving on than think about all the ways he wasn’t. Because despite everything, despite the phone call, despite the truth, he still wanted to believe Dean cared so _badly_.

But he couldn’t manage to lie to himself like that. Dean didn’t love him. ‘I miss you’ didn’t mean anything. Or, it didn’t mean what Xander desperately wanted it to mean.

 _Dean doesn’t love you, Alex_.

Xander gritted his teeth and forced his mind away from the memory like he usually did, mentally burying the image of Mary. She was inextricably linked with his memories of Dean, and that phrase had stayed with him, stuck in his mind longer than anything else about that night. It was the bottom line he hit again and again, whenever he couldn’t stop himself from thinking about it all. Which wasn’t often – he’d buried the memories of that night, and for months now he’d kept himself too busy to think about them.

And now Dean was back, hauling it all to the surface again.

“Xander?” Willow’s voice suddenly broke the silence, dragging him back out of his head and into the car. Which was parked outside the apartment building he’d moved into about a week ago.

“Huh. We’re here,” he managed. Probably not one of the more intelligent things he’d ever said.

“Yep. Here we are,” she said. He looked over. She was looking at him with worried sympathy.

“Sorry, I just...it’s...” He turned away, back to the rain on the window. “I’ve just been thinking.”

“Xander,” she said softly. “Do you want me to help him?”

He looked back at her helplessly. In all the mess of feeling that’d just been dredged up inside him, he’d almost forgotten that Dean was dying.

Willow had managed to send him back to his body. She’d helped, but Dean still might not make it. She’d evened the odds out to about twenty-eighty. Against.

And now she was telling him that she wanted to look up a spell, that there might be more she could do, and if he wanted her to, she could probably help more.

If he wanted her to.

A tiny, irrational part of him – probably the same part of him that still hurt when the words, ‘time we gave up on this, right?’ floated to the surface of his mind – wanted to say no. Wanted to feel like it was none of his business, wanted to think that Dean locked Xander out of his life and now it was nothing to do with him if Dean was dying or not.

But that was just a tiny, irrational, vindictive part of him. The rest of him felt sick at the thought. No matter how Dean felt about him, or how he felt about Dean, the thought of Dean _dead_...

Xander hated it. Ever since an encounter with an eerily familiar vampire in an alleyway, the image of Dean wearing a face that’d always meant death to Xander had preyed on him, and given him nightmares on top of the ones he already had.

It made the rest of the mess feel insignificant, somehow. Yes, he wasn’t over Dean, hated the way things had ended between them, hated the fact that they’d ended at all. But no matter how Dean felt about him, Xander loved him. It’d never be returned, and maybe he’d never see Dean again. And maybe living with that had sucked so far, and would probably go on sucking.

But Xander knew he’d never be able to live with himself if Dean died and there was something, _anything_ , he could’ve done about it. So maybe that was the bottom line, really. And it made the answer to Willow’s question a no-brainer.

“Yeah, Wills. I want to help. Whatever it takes.”

 **Two days later**

 

Xander swung his axe again and again, lopping off limbs and slicing through torsos. The hands kept clawing, and the heavy bodies wiggled where they fell. With a disgusted look on his face, he pulled his axe free of a skull that was practically jelly.

It was almost two in the morning, it was freezing, and he’d reached the point of exhaustion where his eyelids felt gritty and his vision was swimming just a little. He’d slept badly; he had enough trouble sleeping under normal circumstances, and this week had been anything but normal. And now there was an army of zombies battling their way out of one of the biggest cemeteries in Cleveland.

He swung his axe again, and paused to throw an elbow at a zombie that was getting too close to his back. Xander glanced around at the girls – they were all still upright, and looking progressively more and more disgusted with the whole exercise.

“Faith,” he yelled across the horde, feeling a little desperate. “Any word from Clara?”

Clara headed up the local chapter of wiccas. She had power, more than enough to take on the necromancer who’d clumsily raised these practically-still-decomposing zombies. A real necromancer and they’d be in trouble, but this guy...

Unfortunately, although his magical clout was sub-par, like all true cowards he was good at hiding. And Clara couldn’t stop the zombies until she found him.

“No,” Faith yelled back. “And she’d better hurry. This is nastier ‘n that thing with the horns.”

Xander grimaced. That thing with the horns had been gross, for a whole lot of dripping-mucous reasons. But Faith was right. This was worse.

These guys _smelled_.

Goddamn zombies, he thought absently. His arms were starting to ache. The zombies weren’t all that hard to deal with, but they made up for it in sheer numbers, and the group was busy keeping them contained. It was disgusting work, but distracting enough. And he needed the distraction.

After they did the spell to help Dean, Willow had been called back to China. Later the same day, zombies rose and started munching on some goth kids who’d been having a party in one of the cemeteries – in the middle of winter, and honestly, Xander didn’t know how they could stand the cold – and he’d jumped at the chance to join the containment team. It was better than the alternative, which was sitting in his apartment trying to figure out what the hell to do about Dean.

If he _should_ do anything. When Willow did the spell, and they found out exactly where Dean was, the urge to go to South Dakota was almost uncontrollable. He wanted to see Dean again, if only to ask one or two of the million embarrassing and awkward questions he had buzzing around in his head. But what if Dean didn’t want to see him? ‘I miss you’ didn’t mean you wanted to see someone. Well, it did, but it didn’t mean Dean wanted to see him. People said all kinds of things when they were ghosts that they might not mean when they were alive again. So he’d stayed away, trying to preserve what little was left of his dignity.

And maybe he was preserving his heart, as well. Seeing Dean again was great in theory, but what happened when he saw Dean, and saw the way Dean never, ever loved him back? He didn’t think he could deal with getting that close again to what he’d never be able to have. Better to stay away.

 _Dean doesn’t love you, Alex_. He flinched as the words ran through his mind, her voice clear in his head.

Angry at himself for thinking about it again, Xander struck hard at a groaning figure, hoping to distract himself. The blow managed to wedge his axe in a zombie skull again, and this one was a little less decomposed than the last – it was harder to pull the blade free.

And now that he’d once again hit that bottom line, as inevitable as the bottom of a bottle, should he be worried that in spite of everything he desperately wanted Dean to come to Cleveland?

He swung his axe a little harder, and moved closer to the centre of the fight. He ducked under a flying limb, and nearly caught a skeletal hand in the face. He forced himself to concentrate, to think of nothing but the next punch, the next swing.

Zombies were definitely better than sitting alone, waiting for somebody who wasn’t even coming. No matter how torn Xander was, no matter how much he couldn’t decide what he wanted, the decision had already been made. Dean wasn’t coming.

If he fought hard enough, maybe he’d be exhausted enough to sleep later.

Thankfully, the zombies kept coming, and Xander fought mindlessly until sunrise. Physical exhaustion took over whenever there was a break in fighting, and it got harder and harder to throw himself back into the fray. But he managed, reminding himself that this was better than nothing. Better than waiting.

Faith and the other girls were tireless, and they all managed to keep the zombies penned in until the sun rose. With the first touch of light over the horizon, the creatures and their severed parts sank back into the earth and Xander tiredly lowered his axe.

“Head home,” Faith suggested wryly. “Try to sleep this time.”

“Yeah, thanks. You too, Faith.” She gave him an arch smile, obviously not at all tired. Goddamn slayer energy, he thought.

He trudged home, wearily shouldering his weapon. Nobody paid any attention to the axe – one of those weird hellmouth things, no doubt. There weren’t that many people out on the streets of Cleveland at sun-up, anyway.

Finally, Xander reached the apartment building. He walked carefully up the front steps, which sometimes had a film of ice over them this early in the morning, and into the building. He’d been staying there for about a week, but it wasn’t really his apartment. The apartment had been bought in his name when Giles decided they needed a place in Cleveland separate from the Slayer house. It was warded out the wazoo, and after he left for Scotland in week’s time, someone else would move in.

The hall inside was warm, and Xander could feel himself melting. Of course, the warmth brought on a desire for sleep so hard he almost passed out right there in the hallway.

Gathering his strength, Xander walked past the out-of-order elevator and started on the flights of stairs to his floor. His axe weighed heavily, but the thought of his bed kept him going.

At that moment, Xander rounded the corner into the hallway outside his apartment and saw Dean sitting on his doorstep. And just like that, the world stopped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from a song by Led Zeppelin.


	2. Corduroy

Dean looked up when he saw movement in the corner of his vision and saw Alex was standing there in the dingy hallway. His breath caught in his throat as he stared.

Alex. _Alive_.

Relief bloomed inside him, so hard and so fast it actually hurt. Alex was alive.

He struggled to his feet, staggering a little, and stumbled down the hallway, working up to a run. Alex took two or three steps to meet him, and Dean threw himself into the offered embrace, holding on as tight as he could.

 _Alex was alive_. The thought beat in his heart like a drum, and in that moment he could have laughed, cried and screamed all at once. Instead he buried his ragged breathing in the spot where Alex’s neck met his shoulders, anther burst of emotion shredding him when he recognised the smell of Alex’s skin. He squeezed his eyes shut, ignoring the tears leaking out, wanting a way to stop time.

They stayed like that, arms locked around each other. Dean wallowed in the feel of solid heat, of Alex’s muscles shifting beneath his skin and the shuddering breaths he took. The nightmares of Alex cold and still in the dirt or blown to pieces under the rubble of that goddamn town, the nightmares he’d been trying to bury in the bottle, all faded away. He gripped a little tighter, and his heart felt like it was breaking to feel Alex hug him back a bit harder in return.

Eventually, he felt Alex loosen his grip, and Dean backed off a little, not enough to put any distance between them but enough for him to take a look at Alex’s face.

“Hey,” he said, smiling even though his voice was rough and he was pretty sure he had tear tracks running down his face.

Alex’s forehead furrowed, and for a second he looked on the verge of tears. “Hey yourself.”

The response brought a smile to Dean’s face, and when Alex smiled back reflexively, Dean suddenly knew what people meant when they said it could be like the sun coming out.

Some of the horrible tension in him relaxed. He brought one hand up to cup Alex’s jaw and pressed their foreheads together. He felt Alex lean into the touch, and exhaled hard, relief still making him feel shaky. Without thinking twice, Dean pressed a heartfelt kiss to Alex’s lips.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered roughly. “I’m so, so sorry.”

***

Xander stilled at the words. After the initial shock had broken, he’d been caught by a wave of sheer relief. Relief that Dean was alive and in one piece, and, overwhelmingly, relief that he’d cared enough to come, even just to say thanks.

Beneath that, there was of course the painful, addict’s relief of just seeing him. A fix, after so long. He’d pay for it later, but God, it was good.

“I fucked everything up,” Dean went on, one arm tight around Xander’s waist and another sliding up to cup his jaw. Dean was talking like he wanted to make a point, ducking his head to meet Xander’s eyes like he needed Xander to listen. “I should’ve never called you like that, it was the worst mistake I ever made, and I want to make it better. I want to make it right if I can.”

It was like a wash of cold water down Xander’s back. He pulled back and stared. He couldn’t be hearing this. Dean didn’t want him, he didn’t –

“I love you,” Dean whispered, his eyes shining with it.

The world froze again, and Xander stood stunned. Then, as the words sank in, he hauled off and punched him.

Dean’s head flew to the side, and his apparently boneless body followed, thumping hard against the hallway wall. Xander didn’t let him recover his footing – he threw himself after Dean, grabbing the front of his jacket and dragging him upright, shoving him against the wall with enough force that Dean’s head struck plaster again.

“What did you just say to me?” he snarled, staring wildly into Dean’s startled face.

Dean just looked back at him, mute and bewildered, his frown making the scar on his forehead into a deep groove. Xander grimaced at the deep well of pain that opened up in Dean’s eyes, resenting the spark of sympathy in his chest. He was furious; he never felt so deeply, irrationally angry.

“You _left_ ,” Xander ground out. “You gave up, and you... After everything that’s goddamn happened, how can you come here and _say_ that to me?” he demanded, pushing Dean against the wall and not caring that he was probably hurting him.

“I’m sorry,” Dean said hoarsely. “I fucked everything up. I never wanted to end it.”

Xander’s hands gripped tighter at Dean’s jacket, and he pushed at him again, trying to force him to stop. “No,” he ground out.

“I’m so sorry I lied to you,” Dean persisted, and his eyes were suspiciously bright as he went on. “And I love you. More than anything.”

Another frozen moment as the words rang in Xander’s ears, and it seemed like the world stopped around him again. “No,” he said again.

But the edge of his anger was disappearing, and his denial sounded desperate to his own ears. Hurt was following quickly on the heels of his anger, and Xander searched Dean’s face again. There was no trace of dishonesty, only hurt and worry.

And grief. Guilt. Desolation. Regret, like the kind that claws its way into your heart, tearing black holes in your memories until you’d give anything to make it stop.

Xander lowered his head for a second, trying to keep a grip on himself but feeling like he’d been kicked in the chest. He tried to process it, tried not to feel completely and utterly destroyed by what he could see in Dean’s face.

His grip on Dean’s jacket changed, became a little more about holding himself up than holding Dean down. Dean gripped his arms, trying to help, probably looking at him with that fraught concern Xander remembered from the few times he’d been hurt when they hunted together and God...

He pulled away sharply, wrenching his arms and hands out of Dean’s grip. He didn’t believe it, he wouldn’t. He couldn’t. It couldn’t be true.

“You gave up, you _said_ it” he repeated, hurt making his chest tight.

Dean just looked at him with those guilt-stricken eyes, tearing up at the anguish reflected in Xander’s voice. He reached out for Xander, but didn’t try to fight the accusation in Xander’s voice. “I’m _sorry_ ,” he said again, with a voice that sounded painful, like ground glass.

It was Xander’s turn to flinch, grimacing away from Dean’s pleading look. Unable to take anymore, he stumbled away, forgetting the axe that lay where he’d dropped it on the floor. Xander managed to fumble his keys out of his pocket and fit them in the lock, shoving at the apartment door.

He went in without looking back, and slammed the door shut behind him.

***

The door slamming sounded like a gunshot. Xander stormed across the apartment, hurt and anger vying for control of him. He yanked his coat off and threw it in the general direction of the sofa, tugged sharply at the belt that held the machetes he’d worn to the cemetery and dropped them in one corner of the room, throwing them down in a heap when he couldn’t untangle the leather straps.

He paced back, anger momentarily in the fore, and stared furiously at the door. He wanted to punch something else. Possibly the look on Dean’s face as he said it, said those three words, said the phrase guaranteed to destroy whatever peace of mind Xander had managed to manufacture for himself. Of all the fucking nerve...

Because he knew it wasn’t true. Dean did not love him, that was the one constant thing that’d been keeping him...not sane, but...and for Dean to _lie about it_...

Son of a bitch, Xander thought furiously as he lost the line of thought to incoherency. It was one thing to want Dean to turn up, to say thanks or hi or I miss you or whatever, but that was acceptable within the bounds of the fact that he _left_. He made the call, he shut off his goddamn phone, and he’d never given Xander the chance to fight it.

Which wasn’t fine, but was, in a way. Dean had never promised him anything.

But _lying_ about it, about _that_ , actually saying it to Xander’s face....

As Xander stood there, breathing hard like he’d been running for his life, the adrenalin that’d flooded through him faded in the face of his disbelief. Doubt crept in.

Dean was lying. Right?

No, he stopped himself, with a fresh burst of anger. It couldn’t be true, it just couldn’t. The demon was fucking with him, and Dean...Dean was lying.

But the doubt was there, and Xander, shaken, found himself leaning on the back of the sofa and gripping it hard. His legs were jelly, suddenly, and his head was spinning.

Dean was outside. He was really there, and Xander could feel the fading impression of his body where he’d touched him; solid warmth that felt like a phantom embrace, or maybe a brand.

He’d come. Not just to say thank you – to tell Xander he loved him.

The look on Dean’s face...

Xander pushed off the sofa and paced the room again, running his hands restlessly through his hair, breathing deeply, trying to calm down. God, what the fuck? He couldn’t believe it, couldn’t believe this was happening. Maybe it was just another dream?

But he was awake. The soreness from fighting, ache in his bruises, and the way his heart was trying to pound out of his chest – it was more alive than he’d felt in a year.

And all Xander could see was Dean’s desperate face as he apologised again and again. So much grief and regret. He’d never seen that before, never seen Dean regret anything. Not like this.

Not like the pain of it was just about killing him.

Xander tried to fight it, tried not to let it touch him, but the sight of that regret... If it was genuine, if Dean really felt like ditching Xander was a mistake, that he’d really fucked up _that badly_...

What? Xander would just let him waltz back in, like nothing had happened? After a fucking year?

No. Hell no.

But...

He had questions. A million awkward questions that he might finally be able to get Dean to answer. If Xander could listen to him, if they could talk and sort through some of this...perhaps he could find some kind of closure.

Abruptly disgusted with himself, Xander paced across the room again. That was such a lie. He didn’t really want to talk and he knew it. He wanted an excuse to see Dean, to let him in, and that was exactly the goddamn problem. Jesus, he really was an addict.

But then, as he paused in his pacing and stared heavily out the window, Xander imagined never seeing Dean again. Ignoring what he’d said, forgetting the look in his eyes, and locking the deadbolt if he knocked.

He wasn’t sure if he had the strength for that.

 _Dean doesn’t love you, Alex_. But Xander knew he loved Dean. It was sick, it was bad for him, and it was going to strip his heart down to nothing.

But those three words, and the look on Dean’s face as he said them...

Why would Dean say it, if he didn’t mean it? It’d be cruel, and Dean wasn’t cruel.

But why had he lied before? And if he’d lied before, if he was telling the truth _now_...

Xander‘s thoughts came to a dead stop. It meant the First was lying. It meant Xander had broken for nothing.

No, he told himself. No, it doesn’t. Don’t think about that.

Spinning on his heel, as he could physically move away from his thoughts, he crossed the room again. This time, he banged his bruised knuckles on one of the dining chairs, and the sharp pain brought back the sound of his fist as it connected with Dean’s jaw, the sharp thud as Dean’s head hit the wall.

Guilt managed to swim to the surface of his mind, through the confusion, and he reluctantly turned to look at his front door. Taking a few involuntary steps towards it, Xander wondered whether Dean was alright, whether he was still outside.

He wouldn’t be, of course – he’d be long gone, tail between his legs. And the tattered remnants of Xander’s self-preservation instincts told him he’d be better off.

But he’d never paid much attention to those instincts in the past. And if Dean was really gone, none of Xander’s questions would ever get answered.

He probably left thinking I hated him, Xander realised. Which meant he’d never come back, and Xander would never see him again even if he wanted to. Irrational upset crept in, a deep hurt that Xander tried to cover in anger. But it felt like lying to himself again, and he hated it.

Maybe he hated Dean, too, after all. Hated him almost as much as he loved him. Right now, he had no idea, and for Dean to leave before Xander could even think this through...

Fuck, this was such a mess, he thought helplessly.

If Dean was gone, that would have to be the end of it.

If he wasn’t...

Hesitantly, Xander crossed to the door and listened, touching his fingers lightly on the wood. He couldn’t really hear anything from the corridor outside, but he knew he’d never rest easy unless he made sure Dean was gone.

Before he could change his mind, Xander opened the door and stepped out.

His breath caught in his throat.

Dean was still there. He’d sunk to the floor on the spot where Xander left him, sat there the whole time Xander’s head had been twisting round and round inside. And for the first time, Xander noticed the deep scar on his forehead, and how exhausted he looked. Coupled with the blossoming bruise on his jawline, he looked rough. But in some unconnected way, he looked beaten. It was like all the normal defences that made up Dean Winchester were gone, swept away, and all Xander could see was misery.

“Hey,” Xander said before he could stop himself, his voice cracking. Dean’s tear-stained face snapped around, eyes widening when they saw him. Dean visibly tried to collect himself, tried to force some of his walls back up, but he couldn’t hide how heartbroken he was.

After a second’s contemplation, Xander walked over to retrieve his axe. It wasn’t what he’d come out for, but it made a convenient excuse. Then, as he headed back to the apartment, he met Dean’s eyes and said softly, “Come inside.”

Dean stared up at him, surprise mixing with the grief on his face. This time, Xander left the door open behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from a song by Pearl Jam.


	3. Crown of Love

Dean already felt like he was holding his breath as he stepped across the threshold into Alex’s apartment. Alex had been so hurt, so _angry_. Dean shouldn’t have expected any different. It was a miracle that he’d been invited in at all, and now he was walking on eggshells, waiting to be kicked out.

Alex had disappeared into the kitchen, taking the axe with him, and Dean heard water running as he awkwardly shucked his jacket. He looked around the empty, practically featureless room. There wasn’t much to see – a hallway that probably led to bathroom and bedroom, a plain dining table with chairs. The kitchen opened up to the living room, in that open-plan way that was meant to make the place look bigger. Two long leather sofas filled the space near the TV. The carpet was plain, the walls were white. It looked like a hotel room. Anonymous.

Alex came back around the corner from the kitchen, and he drew Dean’s gaze like gravity. He’d lost his jacket, and the dark colour of his sweater made his skin look pale.

“How’s your face?” he asked, looking guilty and shadowed. His arms were crossed, and he wouldn’t raise his eyes above Dean’s jawline.

“It’s fine,” Dean reassured him anxiously. “It’s nothing.”

Xander’s mouth compressed to a tight line. “I shouldn’t have hit you.”

“I deserved it,” Dean said bluntly. Xander recoiled.

“Because that makes domestic violence okay,” he muttered, and headed back into the kitchen before Dean could reply. “Come in here. I want to put some ice on it,” he called.

Dean followed. There was so much he wanted to say, so much he wanted to hear Alex say, but if Alex wanted to give him ice, he’d take ice.

In the kitchen, Dean hesitated. He watched as Alex moved a bucket of sudsy water from the sink to the floor, and dropped the grimy battleaxe into it, blade first. Alex turned and to get an icepack from the freezer, and before he turned back, Dean blurted out, “There’s a demon after you.”

Alex froze, and turned to stare at him. Dean quailed under the disbelief in his eyes, but ploughed ahead. Alex had to be warned.

“My family – my father – has been hunting a demon for twenty years. On Friday night it found out about you, and I think it’s coming here. I had to tell you. It’s looking for you, and I don’t know how long you’ll be safe.”

Alex stared for another second. Dean knew he should go on, say something else to explain it better, but for a moment he was too sickened by it, by the guilt of bringing the thing down on Alex.

“Is that what you really came here for? Because of the demon?”

Dean’s head snapped up. Alex had asked the question quietly enough, but when Dean looked in his eyes, he saw pain, and hated it.

“No,” he replied roughly. “I came because as soon as I found out you were alive, I had to see you. I came because I had to tell you the truth, to try and explain what I did. I came because I had to tell you I love you.”

A million emotions played over Xander’s face, each one disappearing too fast for Dean to make sense of them. He opened his mouth to speak, and Dean held his breath, waiting and barely letting himself breathe. But with a noise of bewildered frustration, Alex turned and crossed back to the refrigerator, putting his back to Dean and rummaging around in the freezer.

Dean sank back against the counter and ran a hand through his hair. No reaction, and it was all he deserved. He’d left him, then brought a demon down on him, and Alex didn’t even know why.

“And because I’m sorry,” Dean added softly. Alex froze again, and this time Dean could see from the hard line of his shoulders that he’d probably tensed every muscle in his body. And maybe he should wait, let it be for a while, should shut up because what he had to say was going to get him tossed back out in the cold. But he couldn’t. He had to tell him, had to get it out in the open.

“The demon that’s coming after you is the same one that killed my mother when I was four.” Alex twisted around, this time with an icepack in one hand, and Dean barely let himself take in the new shocked look on his face.

“It cut her open and pinned her to the ceiling in Sam’s nursery. And a year ago, it killed Sam’s girlfriend Jessica in exactly the same way.”

“He loved her,” Dean said bitterly. “And she died, just like Mom. All I could think was that you were next. I thought I had the pattern figured out, I thought it was us, that we were cursed or something. I thought... I thought that the people we love...”

He couldn’t finish the sentence. Alex, who still looked slightly stunned, had opened his mouth to say something, but Dean couldn’t let him, not yet. So he pressed on.

“So I called you. I panicked, I guess. I thought the only way to keep you safe was to stay away, and...and keep you away from me. So I called you and I tried... I tried to pretend...” The words stuck in his throat with a noise of pain. God, he couldn’t finish that, either. He wrapped his arms around himself, hoping to hold some of the pain out, hold himself together.

“Then Sunnydale went under, and I couldn’t find you. I got that email...” Alex made a noise that sounded like denial, sounded like regret, but Dean wasn’t done.

“I’ve regretted it so _much_ ,” he insisted, raising his eyes to meet Alex’s. “I kept telling myself I had to let you go, had to keep this thing away from you. But it was a mistake, a huge, fucking mistake. I should have told you, _warned_ you. And then, when you were dead, I didn’t think I’d ever be able to explain or make it right. When I found out you were alive, I...”

He’d never be able to describe the feeling. Standing here, it was like he could feel Alex from across the room, just the _aliveness_ of him. The compulsion to get here, to be here with Alex and _stay_ , just stay in his presence, was so strong. Dean wasn’t sure how he’d cope if Alex told him to leave.

“I don’t expect you to forgive me. But I need you to know that I love you, and I’m so, so sorry,” he managed to add.

Alex’s eyes searched his face. Dean felt like he was looking through him, in him, and all he could do was let it happen. He had nothing to lose, nothing else to hide. Nothing he wanted to hide, anymore.

Dean shifted from foot to foot as Alex stepped in close to him. He dropped his gaze, didn’t know where to look. Time seemed to slow to a crawl, and Dean held his breath when Xander reached for his face.

The icepack was a shock of cold when it finally touched his skin, and he risked a startled glance at Alex. He was still studying him, and Dean looked away. But then the fingers on Xander’s other hand came up to rest on the other side of his jaw, barely touching him to hold him in place, and they were warm. Dean’s eyes closed, and he couldn’t help but lean in to the touch for a moment, barely stifling a sob. He had to grip the counter behind him to stop himself reaching for Alex.

Alex, who was warm, alive, and _so close_. No matter what happened, no matter whether Alex decided they had a future together, that was enough.

After a moment, Dean started to breathe again, and opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was Xander’s throat, his collar, and he was suddenly struck by the sheer proximity. Awareness prickled through him, and he shifted, freezing when his hip and most of his leg brushed against Alex. The air around them suddenly seemed charged, thick with tension. Dean gripped harder at the counter, to hold himself back. He didn’t dare move.

They were still for a second, Dean frozen and barely breathing, with Xander watching him closely. Their thighs were still touching, and Dean could feel the warmth like a brand. Then, as Dean felt seconds pass like eternity, Xander moved. He shifted the icepack slightly, repositioning it on Dean’s jaw.

Then he moved his other hand so it stretched further across Dean’s skin. The tips of his fingers curled around the curve of Dean’s jaw, and his thumb just barely brushed against the corner of his mouth. Where before, Xander had been holding Dean in place, now he was _touching_ , and the difference made Dean’s heart pound.

Dean sucked in a breath, and closed his eyes again.

“Dean,” Alex said helplessly, and the sigh that followed ghosted over Dean’s lips. He was close, so close. Dean had another jolt of _Alex is alive_ , and pushed forward before he could stop himself. Their mouths met, crushed and trembling. Dean’s arms moved of their own volition, pulling their bodies together, his hands fisting roughly in Alex’s shirt.

Alex tasted like home. So warm, so familiar, and kissing Dean back desperately. Emotion built inside him, and it was so good it was painful.

He poured it all into the kiss, growing rough with need. Alex echoed it, matching him, matching his want. The icepack fell as his hands grasped at Dean. He pushed Dean back until the kitchen counter dug a line into his back and followed, pressing them together. Their bodies practically fused, every possible inch touching through the thin barrier of their clothes.

It was so familiar. The taste, the press of muscle, the way Alex’s fingers threaded through the hair at the nape of his neck. So familiar, and so close, after so long, and Dean’s heart felt like it was breaking all over again.

He soaked it all in mindlessly, revelling in the warmth and heat, the feel of it, the promise he desperately wanted to believe their kisses held.

Abruptly, like he’d read Dean’s mind, Alex pulled away, wrenching their mouths apart with a slight noise of pain. Dean’s mouth quested after his with a frown of surprise, but Alex, breathing hard, said, “Stop, Dean. Just...stop.”

Dean, also breathing hard, closed his eyes and tried to pull his brain back online. He leaned forward until his forehead rested on Xander’s, and let them stand there like that for a long moment.

Alex was right. Too fast. Way too fast. Dean sighed as what little sense he had reasserted itself. As amazing as sex in the kitchen would undoubtedly be, he wouldn’t be able to handle it if they did something Alex regretted. “Okay,” he said after a minute. “Okay.”

Alex sighed heavily. “I’m sorry,” he said, voice ragged with upset. “I can’t... I don’t know what I want, and I don’t... I can’t _think_.”

Dean’s heart clenched to hear Alex sound so distressed. “Hey, it’s fine. Don’t,” he pleaded, pulling back to look Xander in the eyes and try to convey that he understood.

Xander scanned his face, frowning with anxiety. “Can we just...” He stopped, blinking, and swayed a little towards Dean, a cast of exhaustion coming over his face.

Dean bravely placed a short, chaste kiss on his lips. “I’ll go,” he offered roughly, and cleared his throat. “Go, come back later. Give you time to...”

He waved hand vaguely, wondering absently whether he’d make it to the front door in one piece, let alone wherever the hell it was he thought he was going after that. Maybe he’d manage it, maybe he’d be alright if he knew he could come back.

But Alex was shaking his head, his hands gripping Dean’s upper arms. “Stay,” he said.

Dean’s breath caught.

“Not to... Just to sleep,” Alex added, fumbling the words. “Then, later, we can. Talk. Or something,” he said haltingly, tired eyes searching Dean’s face.

Dean nodded silently. The offer felt like a stay of execution, like a fragment of hope.

Then Alex squinted at him. “You know, you really look like shit,” he said, sounding slightly surprised.

Dean managed a grin. “Yeah, well,” he said. Having it said out loud made it feel like a reality, though; he suddenly became very aware of the ache in his skull, the line of fire across his forehead, and muscles that were sore from driving and walking all night when he probably should have been sleeping.

“Come on,” Alex said softly. Dean let him lead the way out of the kitchen and across the apartment. The hyper-reality of their intimacy in the kitchen was fading, replaced with deadening senses as his body started to crash, as if given permission by the promise of sleep. The only thing that seemed real was the feel of the strong, solid, not-dead body under his hands. Tangible proof that Alex was still standing there, and proof that Dean was there too, in a world that suddenly seemed weirdly far away. God, he was tired.

They paused in the middle of the living room, and Alex turned to look at him. “I _am_ angry with you. I just thought you should know,” he said, as if to clarify the situation. He was frowning, anxious and uncertain.

“Good. You should be,” Dean replied simply.

Alex scanned his face for a long second, then nodded insecurely. “I can be angry with you later. We can do that, right? Sleep, and...talk later.” He sounded shaky, and completely wiped out.

“Sounds awesome,” Dean replied. Unsteadily, he leaned in to steal another kiss while he had the opportunity. Alex just closed his eyes and let him. He tasted like home, and Dean could have cried.

Alex broke it off with a ragged breath. “That way,” he said, pointing Dean in the direction of the bedroom. Dean only went because he knew Alex was right behind him.

Boots, coats, weapons and finally jeans were shed, and Alex tipped him into bed. Dean hit a pillow face first, and his body went lax so fast he didn’t think he’d ever be able to move again. He drifted a bit, waiting. There were a few soft noises and rustles behind him as the curtains got pulled, and Xander was back and encouraging him under the covers. Dean blinked sleepily, watching shapes move in front of his eyes. Then Alex lay down beside him.

And as soon as his eyes managed to focus in on Xander, Dean couldn’t look away. The feeling sneaking through him, through the parts of him that weren’t already asleep, was something a lot like wonder.

***

Xander looked back at Dean for what felt like forever. He didn’t know what he was doing, or what would happen when they woke up. When Dean’d kissed him, he’d got that deep, satisfied, addict’s sense of peace, and exhaustion had hit quickly, too much sleep disturbed by nightmares suddenly taking its toll. He was probably still in shock.

Dean had come. He’d said sorry. He’d said he loved him. And just for a while, Xander let himself believe it. He’d pushed all his doubts away, and he wanted to wallow, just for a while, no matter how much he regretted it in the morning.

With a deliberateness that echoed the first time he’d casually rolled over and waited for Dean to curl up behind him, he turned over onto his other side and waited.

It seemed to take Dean a second to figure out, or maybe he needed to work up the strength and willpower to move. But then he levered himself forward in a rush and plastered himself to Xander’s back with a mournful sound that cut through some of Xander’s denial. Xander grabbed the hand that groped for his and gripped it tightly, willing Dean not to break the spell, willing Dean not to make Xander think about what he was doing.

“I miss you,” came the hoarse whisper, and Xander felt warm breath on the back of his neck. “God, I miss you.”

Xander closed his eyes against it, against the rush of hurt and familiarity that suddenly brought home everything he’d wanted so badly for the past year. He breathed deep, trying to control himself.

Behind him, Dean moved forward a little, nudging his knees into the backs of Xander’s and tangling their feet together like he always had. And Xander was hit by an involuntary wave of relaxation, a reaction hard-wired from years of sleeping with Dean.

He’d never slept so well in his life than when they slept together, just like this.

Later. He could deal with it later. He closed his eyes to blink the tears away but found they were too heavy to open. So he drifted, and the sound of Dean breathing deeply behind him was the last thing he remembered before falling asleep.

***

John drove as fast as he could, pushing Bobby’s crappy soccer-mom van as hard as it would go. Sam was awake, finally – he’d slept through most of Iowa and half of Illinois – but he’d woken up almost an hour ago.

He’d asked where they were, but hadn’t said anything else. Yet.

John was grateful for the silence. He’d been trying to concentrate all his thoughts on driving, on the car and the road and the gas meter and which turns to take and the best ways to avoid tolls and troopers. But it he couldn’t help thinking, and if Sam interrogated him now...

God knew what he’d say.

He could barely organise his thoughts, could barely work out what to think about all of this, so there was no doubt he’d say the wrong thing to Sam. Although that wouldn’t exactly be different from usual.

But this was about Dean, and right now, where Dean was concerned, John wanted to say the right thing.

He’d been wrong for long enough.

The demon hadn’t shown him everything, hadn’t shown him anything, really. Just enough to know how much Dean loved this kid, and how much it’d cost him. How much it would cost him, to know the kid had been killed because of Dean. Because of them.

John hated the thought.

And yeah, maybe it’d taken him a few hours to come to that realisation, but the whole situation had come as a bit of a shock. His son was in love with a guy, and while John had never had a real problem with that sort of thing – consenting adults could get up to whatever they wanted in the privacy of their own bedrooms, it had nothing to do with him – well, this was a bit more immediate. It wasn’t some abstract; it was his son, and it was really a part of his life. And that took adjusting to.

Not least because Dean had kept it a secret from him. A life-altering thing for Dean, and he didn’t think he could tell his own father. But since the demon had shown him what went on inside his son’s heart, John was realising more and more how much he didn’t know about his son, how much he hadn’t bothered to see. And how much what was happening now was his fault.

Ever since Mary, he’d had counted on Dean to take care of Sam. And now he realised he’d gradually come to count on him for a lot more – he’d turned his son into a soldier, a second, without thinking twice about what he might’ve wanted instead.

Dean had never complained, and actually seemed to love the job. He loved his father, and he believed in fighting evil purely because it was the right thing to do.

But he’d gotten so lost. He’d given up so much, too much. There were too many things Dean had put away from himself rather than ask for, too many things he’d told himself he could never have. Things John had never even realised Dean wanted.

Like Alex.

Dean really, really loved the kid. He’d never said it, had never really been able to admit it. But it was there if you looked. And he’d been so afraid of what could happen, so afraid for Alex, that he’d done the only thing he knew how to do, the only thing John had really taught him. Sacrifice. What he wanted didn’t matter; protecting the innocent was more important.

But when Alex ‘died’, it’d almost killed him. And John knew that if Dean lost Alex again, especially at the hands of something after him because of them, their family, it’d probably destroy Dean in ways that didn’t bear thinking about. And John didn’t want to see Alex dead, of course, but he did not want to see that happen to Dean. Bad enough that it’d already happened to one boy, but not both.

John was just brooding on that when Sam finally broke the silence between them.

“Dad?”

John glanced over, dragging his mind back to reality. Sam’s head was down, and he was flicking something between his fingers.

“How did we let this happen? How did it get to this?”

“What do you mean, Sam?”

“How did we let it get so bad Dean could think...”

“You mean how did I let it get so bad.”

“He left me, too.”

John glanced over again, taking a longer look this time. Sam’s fingers were still, and he was staring sadly at whatever it was he’d been holding.

It was a photograph. Silently, John held his hand out, and after a moment Sam passed it over. John held it up over the steering wheel so he could get a good look at the picture and still keep one eye on the road.

They were perched on a picnic table somewhere sunny, and from what John could see of the background it looked like a grassy park or rest stop. Dean had one arm slung around the kid’s neck and the other back behind him, taking the weight. The kid was leaning back against him, and Dean’s head was turned as he said something into the kid’s ear.

The kid. Alex. Dark eyes, dark hair, a crooked smile. A few years older than Sam, maybe, depending on how long ago this shot was taken. One of his arms reached up towards the camera and out of the shot, angled so he could take the photo of the two of them. They were both squinting a little in the sunlight, but John wondered if the creases by Dean’s eyes weren’t from smiling, too.

Dean looked happier and more relaxed than John had ever seen him. More than that, he looked at peace. At home. And John now knew that it all because of the boy sitting next to him, the boy whose ear was barely an inch from Dean’s mouth.

John passed the photo back silently, and returned his attention to the road.

“What are we gonna do, Dad?” Sam asked, and John could hear the worry in his voice. All the thousand ways they could lose Dean between here and Cleveland must be preying on him.

“I don’t know, Sam.” Mary would have known. She’d have been able to fix this, tell him what to say to their sons. Hell, she probably wouldn’t have let it come to this in the first place.

Of course, if she’d been here, he would have been able to offer Dean a life where Alex wasn’t the only person to ever make him happy.

Out of the corner of his eye, John caught Sam’s clenched jaw, his resolute stare out the window.

“Dean’s probably in Cleveland already,” he added, trying to keep his voice as calm as possible. “We’ll go to that apartment, talk to Alex, and see if he’s there. Then...we’ll see.”

Sam nodded slightly.

As an afterthought, John added without thinking, “I just hope he hasn’t gotten there only to find...” He couldn’t finish the thought, and said instead, “I just hope Alex is alright.”

Sam had turned back to look at him. “Really?”

John gave Sam a surprised, almost wounded look.

“Sorry,” Sam offered. “I guess I just didn’t think you’d be thinking about him.”

John paused deliberately, gritting his teeth and waiting for the knee-jerk irritation to subside.

“I meant what I said,” he replied when he was able. “No-one else should die because of this thing. And I do not want your brother going through what we’ve been through.”

After a second’s pause, Sam agreed, “No, sir.” Another pause. “I hope we’re not too late.”

John’s only response was to inch down on the gas just a little.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from a song by Arcade Fire.


	4. House of Cards

Xander woke hours later, disoriented. He was warm, warmer than he’d been since Africa, and he’d slept better than he had in months. And there was an arm draped possessively over his body, someone breathing right next to his ear.

He forced his eyes open and shifted, turning so he could look at whoever was curled up behind him.

Dean.

Holy shit.

Xander lay there for a minute, blinking and trying to get his brain to re-boot. It all came flooding back; trudging back to the apartment, bruised and beyond tired, to find Dean sitting there, and the mess of emotions that had followed.

Now that he was awake enough to rub some brain cells together, he started to wonder what the hell he thought he was doing.

Quietly, and trying to suppress the sick feeling in his stomach, he eased his way out from under Dean’s arm. The movement provoked a frown, but didn’t wake him. Xander stood by the bed for a second, looking down at Dean’s sprawled, sleeping form, taking in the way his arm still stretched across the spot Xander had just abandoned. It made him remember the look on Dean’s face when he’d told Xander he loved him.

Rubbing one had slowly through his hair, Xander pulled on a pair of jeans over his boxers and shuffled out of the room. Hoping this would all make more sense with coffee, he headed to the kitchen. As he filled the pot, he stared blankly out the window.

Dean was in the bedroom. He’d come out of his coma and instead of staying in hospital like a normal person, he’d apparently travelled several hundred miles to tell Xander he was sorry. That he loved him. And that he’d lied.

Because of Mary. Xander leaned heavily on the bench, gripping the counter as his mind whirled. Because the demon that came after Xander had killed Mary years ago, and they’d been hunting it ever since, _John_ had been hunting it ever since. And when it’d killed Sam’s girl, Dean had made that godforsaken phone call to try and keep Xander out of the firing line.

Fucking asshole, Xander thought with sudden bitterness. Who _does_ that? _Angel_ , that’s who does that. Instead of giving Xander a heads-up, or God forbid, _asking for help_...

But his irritation subsided as he started to wonder what all of that must have been like for Dean. His mother dead at the hands of a demon, and his father... Xander could imagine exactly the kind of doomed revenge quest John was on.

And suddenly a whole lot of things about Dean made a lot more sense. Bits of conversation came back to him, random comments Dean had made about his family, and his job. Now some of the pieces clicked into place, pieces he never even realised were missing. He wondered if maybe he was finally seeing the whole picture, the whole Dean, when he’d never known he was only looking at half.

And... Dean said he’d panicked. Made the wrong decision. His torn, guilty expression kept appearing in Xander’s mind, and as angry as he was about it, he could accept it. If life had taught him nothing else, it was that people made mistakes.

A mistake. A mistake Dean regretted, that he wanted to fix. So... his absence hadn’t been Xander’s fault. Hadn’t been because he didn’t care, or didn’t want to deal with the fact that Xander loved him. The opposite, maybe.

Which meant that if Dean really meant it, and if Xander could bring himself to believe him, maybe things could go back to the way they had been.

No. As much as he wanted Dean, the thought that all of this had been a deliberate lie made him feel physically sick. Even if the motive had been to keep him safe, it was still betrayal.

And besides, if he believed Dean now, if Dean really loved him...

It meant the First was lying.

Xander usually tried not to think about what had happened that night. But if he let himself, he could still hear every word in his head. He still had nightmares, still had whole weeks where he’d try to sleep only to wake screaming. Or unable to scream. And after the replay and worse had been running in his head all night, he’d have days where he felt so detached he didn’t feel like he was even alive.

He still remembered what it felt like when he wanted to die. Still remembered what it felt like when he’d woken with the knife in his arm. And he still couldn’t block out that one phrase.

 _Dean doesn’t love you, Alex._

Because that’d been the linchpin, the one weak spot that let The First shatter him. That had been the only thing he’d had no argument against, no buffer of bullshit he could use to stay strong and convince himself the First was lying. Everything else he’d dealt with, but that...

He’d believed that was true. Because it had been. Because Dean had left him like it didn’t even matter. And the First had used the pain of it to break him open.

So if Dean was lying _then_ , instead of now, it meant it had all been for nothing. It had all been because of a lie.

He shuddered. He wasn’t sure if he could forgive Dean for that.

And yet, somehow, despite everything that happened, despite how angry he was at Dean, deep down Xander still wanted to try.

But the question was, should he? Did his addiction to Dean outweigh the hurt, the betrayal? Was it enough to overcome the cracked and broken darkness his nights with the First had left inside him?

Mechanically, Xander set the coffee machine, then hauled himself up to sit on the kitchen counter. He stared at the linoleum and let his feet sway a little as he waited, in the unhelpful quiet of the kitchen, for the answer to come to him.

***

Dean woke slowly, from the kind of dreams that usually left tears in his eyes. But Alex was alive, he was safe, and Dean was...

Alone. His eyes flew open. The bed was empty, and the spot in front of him was cold.

For a heart-stopping second, he thought he’d imagined it, that the drive and seeing Alex again had been some freakish fever dream. He pushed the covers back with shaking hands, eyes scanning the unfamiliar room. The open door led to a short hallway, then a living room. Dean’s heart pounded hard, until he caught sight of Alex sitting on the counter in the kitchen.

It was like seeing him for the first time – relief flooded through him again, and the horrible fear in his heart slowly faded.

Taking a few deep breaths and getting his emotions back under control, he crossed the room, eyes never leaving Xander. Seeing him in the daylight, warm, alive, in one piece, now that his brain wasn’t all hazy and dysfunctional from lack of sleep, Dean realised it was real.

It still felt like a miracle.

Sleep-mussed hair, crumpled jeans and a wrinkled t-shirt. Dean suddenly knew that he wanted to see this sight every day. But he buried the thought deep. He didn’t have the right to ask for that, not yet. Maybe not ever. That’d be Alex’s call, so it’d be better not to torture himself with it.

“Hey,” he said warmly, concentrating on the present. Xander glanced at him, and something in his look had Dean stop, unsettled. Haunted, he realised, and brittle. The shadow in Xander’s eyes disappeared quickly, but it still had Dean hesitating uncertainly. He quickly catalogued the changes since they were last together; Alex was thinner, paler, his hair was a little shorter. The same but also definitely different, enough that Dean felt wrong-footed.

“You okay?” he asked seriously, mind racing to try and work out what could be wrong. Besides everything.

“Yeah, just thinking,” Alex replied with a humourless smile.

Dean paused. He wanted to say the right thing, wanted to take some of the obvious weight off Alex’s shoulders. But he had no idea which landmine he’d be stepping on.

He stood there for a moment while the coffee maker sputtered and frothed, its hissing loud in the silent, strained atmosphere. Then, steeling himself, he jumped up on the counter to sit beside Alex, not too close but close enough that he could brush one knee against his if he relaxed his legs.

“What about?” he asked casually, hoping he wasn’t too obviously bracing himself for the worst.

***

He couldn’t do it.

Xander looked over at Dean, sitting next to him on the kitchen bench with an anxious look on his face, and couldn’t bring himself to tell Dean about the First.

He wasn’t even sure why. Part of it was that right now, he couldn’t be that cruel. Dean could never have known, could never have predicted what would happen. In his own tragically warped way, he thought he’d been saving Xander, keeping him safe.

Sure, he should have known that ‘hellmouth’ and ‘safe’ were mutually exclusive concepts. And there was the inescapable fact that the way Dean had chosen to make Xander ‘safe’ had almost killed him.

But dumping all of it in Dean’s lap right now felt too much like it’d just be scoring points. And he didn’t want to see the look in Dean’s eyes when he explained it all, when he told Dean how close it’d come. For some reason, he didn’t want Dean to blame himself for it, even though Xander kind of blamed him, just a little.

On the other side of all that, though, on the darker side, was the growing knowledge that Xander didn’t want to tell Dean about it cause he just didn’t trust him. It was one thing to trust Dean enough to let him in the house, to let him say sorry, to think about giving in to his addiction and letting a fragile something start to build between them again.

It was another to admit that he’d almost killed himself while Dean was gone.

Just the thought of it, blunt like that and terrifying in Xander’s mind, was enough to make him recoil. He’d almost killed himself because Dean’d left. And yeah, that was out of context, but it was also...pathetic.

And God, what the hell was he doing?

What if Dean left again? What if it was all just an ‘I’m-so-relieved-you’re-not-dead thing’? In a few months, just as Xander’d started to get comfortable, Dean would probably realise he hadn’t meant it to go this far and start pulling away, wishing he hadn’t got close.

Or worse, what if Xander spent every minute of every day wondering about it? Just waiting for the day Dean decided they should live their ‘separate lives’ again, this time for good?

Abruptly, Xander jumped down off the counter. He needed to know.

“Tell me again. Harsh light of day,” he challenged, reaching over and jerking up the blind that covered the window over the sink. The light that flooded over them _was_ harsh – pale, wintry and cold. “We’re both awake and aware, and we haven’t just seen each other for the first time when people might have been dead. If you mean any of it, or all of it...tell me again.”

Dean looked at him carefully. He’d climbed slowly off the counter when Xander challenged him, flinched and blinked into the sudden glare when Xander raised the blind. He looked hesitant, like he wanted a moment to find the right words.

Xander knew his expression was twisted and bitter, knew the demand came out of nowhere, knew he was making the broken parts in him too visible. But he couldn’t stand to be the vulnerable one, not again. Dean had to say it, had to promise when it couldn’t be blamed on the heat of the moment. He had to say it without anything that could be used as an excuse.

Maybe then, Xander could start to believe him.

***

“Tell me again,” Xander said. “Not because I’m asking you to, but... if you need to.”

And just like that, the mood changed. What had been a challenge was suddenly something deeper, more fraught. Like something important was hanging in the balance. And with a sudden flash of insight, Dean knew what it was, what Alex meant. What he needed.

Honesty. No frills, no motive, no relief or desperation. Alex needed it to be there, on its own, if it was ever going to mean anything.

And he needed to see Dean’s face as he said it, to work out if it was going to be enough.

No frills. Harsh light of day.

“I love you.”

He said it clearly, quietly, watching Alex watch his face anxiously. Dean knew he couldn’t control the sappy look he got on his face when he said it, knew Alex would be able to see it, and it freaked him out to expose part of himself like that.

But the feeling of it kicked in his chest, warm and alive and good. Before today, it had been twisted and broken, barbed with regret and giving him pain like nothing ever had. The desperation was still there, because he still didn’t know if he could fix this, and he could still feel leftover aches and scars of loss.

But Alex was standing in front of him, so close, staring, a little stunned. And Dean’s heart beat faster just looking at him.

Dean raised a hand before he could tell himself not to. Alex flinched slightly when Dean touched his face, but he let Dean run his fingers across his skin, thread them back in his hair.

“I’ve made the worst mistake of my life. And I’m sorry.”

Alex dropped his eyes and turned his cheek just a little, and the movement rubbed their skin together.

Dean took the lack of protest as an opportunity to move closer, and brought an arm up round Alex’s waist, getting as close as he dared and breathing in warmth. “I don’t expect you to forgive me,” he added hoarsely. “You can throw me out if you want. But...I want to stay.”

***

 _Jesus_ , Xander thought. _That backfired_. Only maybe it hadn’t. _Stay_. Dean wanted to stay.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, mind whirling. His hands moved without his permission, coming up to hold Dean in place where his hand touched his jaw and his arm had wrapped around his waist. His brain was busy trying to realign everything again.

Dean loved him. And...Xander believed it.

Dean wanted to stay. So if Xander could just... if he could just manage to push everything else _away_ for a while...he didn’t have to think about the First, he could save that nightmare for another time...and maybe they could...

Xander opened his eyes, searching Dean’s face once more. Dean, who looked so hesitant, so uncertain. He wasn’t confident, for once, wasn’t exactly sure what he was doing, hadn’t been sure of his welcome. Perversely, it made Xander feel better to know that Dean wasn’t sure that he’d automatically get what he wanted.

And what he wanted was forgiveness. Xander knew it, but he could tell Dean wasn’t sure if he deserved it. Wasn’t even sure if he could ask for it. It was like Dean knew he’d done something practically unforgiveable, and the lack of expectation that came with his regret made the whole thing just a little easier for Xander to bear.

Maybe he didn’t need to forgive Dean, not all the way. Maybe he could manage to forget the First, if he could have what he wanted. Maybe the feeling he still got when they were in the same room, standing close like this, was all that really mattered.

Feeling on the verge of tears, Xander leaned in and kissed him. Harsh light of day, cold reality, with all his faculties working and accounted for, this was still what he wanted. This heady rush of taste and closeness and _Dean_.

Dean froze for a second, then kissed back, a broken noise escaping his throat as he clutched at Xander. They kissed desperately, rough and uncoordinated, and Xander felt like he'd somehow found what he’d been looking for. There was no control here for Dean, either, no lies or pretence. This was real, this had always been real between them. Time, distance and bad memories had made Xander forget, but there had always been _this_.

He broke their mouths apart, letting Dean gasp for air as he half-kissed, half-bit his way down Dean’s jaw. He paused to suck hard at the spot where Dean’s jaw met his throat, wrenching a moan from Dean that made him grin. He hadn’t forgotten everything. It struck him again that Dean was back, he’d come back, that maybe everything was going to be alright. _No, you know it won’t be_ , some part of him thought, but he pushed it away and focused on Dean’s mouth again.

He lost himself, a little, after that, and Dean let him. Everything happened in technicolour, surround sound, but Xander felt like his brain was on vacation and he was just acting on instinct. He could see the same haze in Dean’s eyes as they parted briefly to pull their t-shirts off, one after the other. Maybe Dean needed this about as much as he did. Maybe more.

It was rushed and rough, edged with desperation that drove the heat between them even higher. But even as he felt himself falling, uncertainty nipped at him. His jeans were undone, Dean’s boxers pushed only as far as his thighs, and their bodies were pressed together, thrusting against each other, but suddenly he needed...something else.

Xander freed a hand to pull Dean’s head, bowed to give him a hickey on his collarbone, up to face him. He was losing control, every move of their hips or Dean’s hands or mouth pushed him further and further, and his lust-fogged brain couldn’t find the words. But he didn’t want to face what would happen if they finished this and he felt empty.

He didn’t need to ask. Dean, looking into his eyes, simply repeated his words from before, his voice catching and strained through swollen lips. “I love you,” he managed, breathing raggedly and obviously about to lose control as well. “And I’m sorry.”

Just like that, Xander could kiss him again, tender and deep, one arm thrown around Dean’s neck, and the skin on his back was feeling Dean’s starving hands for the first time in forever. They moved together, tears were streaming down Dean’s face, and Xander felt like he could fly if he wanted. The white rush of orgasm was almost secondary. Not quite, but almost. His hips jerked out of control, and he managed to wrap his hand around Dean’s cock and pull a choked gasp from him, holding him close as he trembled.

 _Everything_ , Xander thought hazily. Families, demons, how broken they both were. Everything felt far away compared to this.

They’d slumped together, sweaty and sticky and holding each other up. Aftershocks skittered up and down Xander’s spine and he kissed Dean warmly, luxuriating in it as Dean kissed him back. Their slightly sweaty skin pressed together, and he could feel Dean still trembling a little.

He could have stayed like that forever.

Dean’s brain started working first, and he pulled their pants up and manoeuvred Xander around, turning him purposefully until Xander was in his arms, back to his chest. Dean let his feet skid across the floor, and he dragged Xander down with him as he slid down the cabinets to sit on the linoleum.

Xander found himself sitting in the vee of Dean’s legs with warm, heavy arms embracing him, and ragged breath going past his ear. He relaxed, leaned his head back on Dean’s shoulder and listened to his heartbeat. He wasn’t sure how long they sat there, half-dozing. But it was peaceful, being held, with Dean pressing the occasional kiss into his hair or the back of his neck.

It made something warm curl in his belly, and he tried to ignore the way his doubts were trying to creep back in even as he let himself feel safe.

For a while, the kitchen was quiet and the strain was gone, muted under the memory of harsh breaths and pleasure.

But as Xander rode out the feeling of satisfaction, as he sat there holding Dean’s arms close around him, part of him started to wonder again just what the hell he was doing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from a song by Radiohead.


	5. Erase/Replace

“Dean, tell me something.”

“What?” Dean asked hoarsely, already agreeing. His brain had come back online a while ago, and his ass was a little numb, but he wasn’t willing to move just yet. He was still humming, still a little too close to sleep. Alex was alive and warm in his arms, and everything was quiet and close. He felt right in some way that he’d been missing for far too long.

“I don’t know,” Alex replied, after a pause. “Anything. Something I don’t know. Something I need to hear.”

Dean nudged his nose at the spot behind Xander’s ear, buying a little time to think. Alex sounded casual enough, but there was an edge of uncertainty in his voice, evidence of the risk he still thought he was taking. And after he’d asked, he’d turned his head away, like he didn’t expect Dean to answer seriously. Like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to hear the answer.

 _He might not_ , Dean thought, pausing for a second. A few things he could say came to mind immediately, but each one was so lame, so emo and angsty. He was going to sound like an idiot.

But who the hell cared? This was Alex. Alex, who needed the truth from him. And, Dean thought slowly, maybe he needed to tell some of it. God knows he’d been aching for the chance these past few months, a second chance to say so many things.

A familiar stab of loss in his chest, and Dean said involuntarily, “The day you died, it felt like my heart stopped. Like my life had ended, somehow. Like I was still walking and talking, but I’d never be happy again.”

He shivered, remembering the feeling even as the tips of his ears turned pink from embarrassment. He ploughed on, not sure if he wanted a response, not yet. “I missed you so much. Kept drinking to kill the nightmares, but I kept feeling your touch on my skin and I couldn’t... I knew that was it, that I’d just be...surviving, until something managed to kill me.”

If Alex had been facing him, looking into his eyes, Dean might not have been able to admit to the weakness. And as he said it, he realised the sentiment was... He stopped. Too much? Alex was still, his eyes blown wide and staring at something unseen. “Sorry,” Dean added uncomfortably. “That sounds a bit insane, I guess.”

Alex’s expression flickered. “No, it doesn’t. It sounds... It sounds like I felt.”

Dean hugged him tighter, feeling the shiver that ran through Alex as he shifted a little to wrap his arms around Dean’s. “I’m so sorry,” Dean said hoarsely.

A pause. “Tell me something else?”

Now could be a good time for a throwaway comment about the car, or Sam’s taste in music. But Dean didn’t think he’d be able to stand it if Alex closed up again. There was something else he could say, but he wasn’t sure if it was going to make things better or worse.

“That last time I saw you, when we had that fight, and you came out and said...what you said,” Dean began, and swallowed hard.

The fight. When Alex told Dean he wanted more, wanted _Dean_. For good.

And Dean freaked out, and ran.

“It surprised the hell out of me,” Dean said, tasting regret on his tongue. “I’d never let myself think of us as more, cause, well, I didn’t think I was allowed. With Dad, and how my life is, I just didn’t think I’d ever be able to.”

“But when I drove away that day, everything you’d said started to sink in,” he whispered. The full force of the moment came back to him, and before he could stop himself he admitted, “I was so fuckin’ happy. I thought I was finally ready, I’d finally had enough and I wanted to tell him about you.” It’d felt like flying, driving down the highway with Alex’s words on loop in his head. And now he wanted to cry at the memory. “I thought I could make it work.”

“But Dad never showed. I waited, I called him, I tried all his friends. But he never damn-well showed.” A flare of anger at his father filled him, one he hadn’t felt when the old man had reappeared with the news that he hadn’t been captured or killed, he’d just abandoned them.

But Dean buried it. He didn’t want to think about his father, about being hated. He could deal with that later. Or never.

Alex thought about that for a minute, and Dean wondered how he felt about knowing he’d been so close to getting what he wanted before it’d all been ruined. _They’d_ been so close. But he just sighed heavily.

Then he got silently to his feet, leaving Dean on the floor feeling completely bereft.

But Alex only went as far as the coffee-maker, and as Dean watched him fill two cups and his abandonment fantasies subsided, he reflected ruefully that he was becoming a complete girl.

Alex came back, handing a cup to Dean, and sat next to Dean with his back to the cabinets instead of returning to the circle of Dean’s arms and legs. Dean tried not to see it as distance, as rejection. At least Alex was close, with his shoulder against Dean’s and most of that side of his body just a fraction of an inch away.

Their heads turned at the same time, eyes meeting over their coffee cups – Dean’s had barely cooled enough to be drinkable, but the caffeine was another kind of comfort – and neither looked away. Meeting Alex’s eyes like that, Dean could follow his expressions, the play of uncertainty, warmth, and leftover intimacy. He knew sex hadn’t really solved anything, but he hoped it’d brought them closer. _He_ felt closer, but he wasn’t stupid enough to assume Alex felt the same.

Dean shifted slightly, pretending it was about pins and needles when really he was moving that much closer to Xander, rearranging his legs so their knees bumped.

“Comfortable?” Alex asked, looking over with a raised eyebrow like he knew exactly what Dean was doing.

Dean grinned, trying not to blush. “Sure. Thanks for the coffee.”

Alex rolled his eyes, then asked, “What happened next? Since...since the last time I saw you.”

And that was a diplomatic way of putting it. But Alex’s expression was genuinely interested, even friendly, and Dean swallowed another mouthful of coffee carefully. A cold kitchen floor seemed as good a place as any to talk about this.

Buying himself some time, he shifted again, turning his body towards Alex, who shifted too. They ended up facing each other, close together, with their shoulders against the cabinets and their legs kind of tangled together in the middle. Dean wanted Alex back in his arms, but hell, a few moves and he’d have him in his lap.

Clearing his throat, he thought back. “Well, eventually I got sick of waiting for Dad, and I went and got Sam. I figured he could help me out for once, and...maybe I’d tell him about you, too. I hadn’t seen him in...in a long time.”

“We didn’t find Dad, but that’s when the demon got Sam’s girl. Same way as Mom.”

He remembered his brother’s screams, the nightmares he’d had. “So I called you.”

Dean didn’t risk a look at Xander’s face, instead letting his gaze get lost in a corner of the kitchen. This face-to-face thing was hard, and he felt exposed. And he couldn’t stop thinking about all the reasons he’d been so stupid, all the fears that’d clenched around him back then. Most of them were still valid – it was his reaction that’d been the problem.

“Sam was in the goddamn room with Jessica when it killed her. Dad was in the house with Mom... Even if I was with you, I had no way to protect you. We didn’t have a weapon against it until about a week ago. We’d been hunting it for so long, and...” he said, his throat so tight with unshed tears almost stopped his voice. “I was so afraid that it would come after you. Still am, actually. ”

He should have fought it, should have found a way around it. Should have been there, made sure Alex was okay, or at least goddamn _warned_ him.

Should have made the most of the time they’d had left.

“And then you died anyway,” Dean added bleakly. The ache of it was still sharp and deep inside his chest. Dean started to feel a touch on his hand. It was Alex, who didn’t say a word but drew Dean just a little bit closer, allowing Dean’s answering clutch at his arm.

But he’d already said enough about how that’d felt. Sticking to the facts would probably work better.

“So,” Dean went on, clearing his throat and letting the contact ground him. “Me and Sam were out on the road, hunting, looking for Dad. He caught up with us about a month ago, just turned up out of nowhere. We decided to split up, but then we were on the trail of these vampires, and he caught up with us again.” Dean restlessly ran his free hand up his own arm, leaning even closer to Alex. Chicago and even Colorado felt like so long ago. He’d been relieved to see the old man alive, but it’d been buried under so much grief and resentment.

Pressing it down, he explained about the Colt, and what happened in Iowa. “We barely got Dad out of Jefferson City, or what we thought was Dad. We’d made it out to this creepy little cabin, miles from anywhere, where we thought we could be safe for a while. And he was talking to me, and I just suddenly realised it wasn’t him. It was like looking at a stranger.”

“The demon had possessed him, and man, seeing those yellow eyes in my father’s face was freaky,” he said, trying to brush off the horror of it. “That’s when the demon told me you were alive. It said it knew about you, that it had told Dad about you. It was going to kill me, then come after you, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.”

He paused again, just for a split-second, staring down at the half-empty coffee cup on the floor between his legs, trying to affix his mind to the present. But those minutes were vivid in his mind; he remembered his heart soaring wildly at the thought that Alex was alive, then plummeting. He’d never felt as afraid, as helpless in his entire life, than he had in that moment, knowing everything he’d done had been for nothing and Alex would suffer and still be gone.

But he closed his eyes, clamped down on the memory, and made it through, collecting himself so he could go on.

“It did something to me, something that felt like knives or something, and I passed out. When I came to, Dad had wrestled control away from the thing and was actually asking Sammy to shoot him. Sam couldn’t, and the demon escaped. We headed out in the car, and I was...I think I might have been dying,” he admitted, with something like an apology in his voice. “Then something hit the car, and the next thing I remember was waking up in hospital.”

“And Dad...he...he looked at me like he didn’t know who I was.”

Alex stiffened, and frowned. “Where is he now? Him and Sam?” he asked, after a moment, and there was a thin edge of anger in his voice.

“Still in South Dakota, I guess,” Dean said, trying to brush off the question and its implications. He didn’t want to think about his family anymore. “I don’t know. I woke up, and Dad... He said... Anyway, I left. I didn’t tell them. I just had to go.”

Dean stopped, unable to say any more. If he did, the massive streak of pain inside him would probably rear up and pounce. He couldn’t think about what he might’ve lost, not now. Alex was more important.

He looked up, finally. Alex was still thinking, his hand still absently holding Dean’s. Dean watched his face change as he thought, emotions flickering across it too fast to take in. There was still something distant and brittle in his eyes, even as his mouth drooped in surprise then tightened with anger. Everything was fleeting, though, and Dean couldn’t really tell what the hell he was thinking.

But he’d listened. And Dean had finally told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. He’d talked more than he had in months, more than he had since...since the last time he was with Alex.

He felt wrung out, like he could sleep, suddenly. Like the tension and strain was gone, and he could rest.

Then something niggled, and he nudged Xander gently. “Sam said he thought he saw a redhead in my room the night I got better. Was it...it wasn’t Willow, was it? He said he could talk to me while I was unconscious, that I was walking around or something. All I remember is dreaming about you, but, I don’t know...”

He trailed off, muddled by the possibilities and unsure how it fitted together. He didn't remember much more than flashes, but Willow was the only person he could think of that was powerful enough, and might be willing. But how would she have known he was injured?

Xander sighed, and looked up at him wearily. “Damn, I was hoping you’d remembered that,” he said, and Dean frowned at the edge of self-mockery in his voice. He had a few seconds to realise that the look on Xander’s face was someone preparing himself for an unpleasant conversation.

“Remember what?” Dean asked. Then Alex replied, and the bottom dropped out of Dean’s stomach.

“You did have an out-of-body experience,” Xander said. “I thought you’d remember it, but... You were...I saw you. You came and stood between me and the yellow-eyed demon when it came for me.”

Just like that, all the peace was wrenched out from under Dean.

“What?” he managed, barely forcing the word out. He felt paralysed, like he was frozen and the world was suddenly spinning around him.

“Saturday night, I drove out of town to pick up some books,” Alex said, a deliberate kind of calm in his voice. “And found myself pinned to a wall in a warehouse in Newark. It tried to kill me, but Willow came for me, and so did you.”

All Dean could do was stare at him, horrified. “Oh my God,” he rasped out.

Suddenly he couldn’t sit there, he couldn’t ...couldn’t be _hearing_ this. He disentangled himself from Alex and staggered to his feet, staggering away a few feet before he had to stop and grab a hold of the counter, his other hand on his belly. He felt like he was going to throw up.

 _Everything he’d done. All for nothing_. His knees wanted to buckle, but he managed to stay upright.

He whirled around, and Alex had also got to his feet, was standing, watching him patiently. “How did you... What...God, are you alright?”

“Dean, I’m fine,” Alex replied, holding out a hand and speaking like he was willing Dean to listen and be reassured. “I told you, Willow came. And you were there, Dean. It tried to do something to me, but you...you shielded me, or something, I think.” There was a flicker of something under the reassurance, some other tone or expression Dean couldn’t quite catch before it was gone.

Dean ran his hands through his hair, his mind racing. But Alex went on before he could say anything.

“That’s how we knew you were in the hospital. Willow sent you back to your body, and then we did the spell to heal you, and...that was it.” Xander said it like he hoped that would be the end of the discussion.

Dean stared at him for one sick minute, then turned away again. “Oh my God,” he muttered, and swallowed hard, trying to control the screaming horror threatening to overtake him.

Then every word his father had ever said to him came back in a rush, and he started to pace.

“Okay. Okay, so...you haven’t seen the thing since?” Dean asked, constructing scenarios on autopilot, considering and discarding different courses of action. Something inside him was running, like an animal away from the shotgun, but he pushed it aside. This was more important than fear, this was the mission. This was Alex.

“No, but...”

“Okay, that’s good,” Dean interrupted, adrenalin spiking as he tallied up their options. Which were...nothing. And nothing. God, he thought, scrubbing his hands through his hair again. He could laugh at the futility of it all. The demon had found Alex, and he didn't have the colt, he had no way to stop it.

Outright fear made itself at home inside him, deep down. He was going to watch Alex die.

“Okay,” he said again, clutching at straws and only peripherally aware that Alex hadn’t said anything, hadn’t moved. “So we’re going to get you out of town, get you as far away from this thing as possible. Maybe there’s some way to hide you, and if it hasn’t come after you again...”

He stopped as a terrible thought came to him. “Christ, what if it’s been waiting for me? Waiting til I came to find you, so I could see when it... Dammit, we should have left as soon as I got here.” Anger sparked in him, a helpless rage. He turned to face Alex with a glare and demanded, “Why the hell didn’t you tell me sooner?”

Xander crossed his arms, and replied stonily, “I thought you knew?” The silent ‘you asshole’ was clear in his voice.

“So when I kept telling you it was coming for you, that didn’t tip you off that I didn’t know it had _already found you_?” Dean shouted.

Instead of apologising, pleading, promising to stay wrapped up in cotton wool as long as Dean wanted him to, Alex met Dean’s furious look with one of his own. “You were _there_. And I’m sorry I didn’t put it together sooner, Dean, but I’ve had other things to think about.”

Dean would have winced at the sharp tone, but he was past caring. “Nothing is more important than this demon,” Dean replied coldly. “God, we’ve been here talking and...messing around,” he said, waving his hands in frustration. “Fucking _sleeping_ , when we should have been making you _safe_.”

The last word came out ragged, and something in Alex’s expression softened for a fraction of an instant. But when he spoke, his voice was bitterly sarcastic, and what remained of the rational part of Dean knew Xander was angry.

“Okay, thank you so much for your complete lack of faith in my survival instincts. I _am_ safe. This apartment? Warded. Safest goddamn place in the city.”

Dean paused for a beat, then snapped with narrowed eyes, “Oh, really? So where the hell were you this morning?”

It was the wrong thing to say. Xander’s expression closed off, and his only reply was a flat, unimpressed, “Out.”

“Out,” Dean parroted angrily. “What good is a warded apartment if you don’t _stay the fuck inside_?” He turned away in frustration, wanting to throw something.

Alex met him with a stony glare. “Dean? Shut up.” It sounded like a suggestion instead of an order, but barely. And Dean’s anger flared, but when he turned back to Alex, he froze at the look on his face.

“Clearly, you’re panicking again, and we both know how well that worked out for you last time,” Alex said, steel in his voice. This time, Dean did wince. Alex’s face was hard and unforgiving as he said, “So _stop_ , before one of us says something we both regret.”

 _Well, shit_ , Dean thought. His anger deflated abruptly.

Alex was right. He shouldn’t have yelled. Fear was still thick in his belly, but as the choking fog of it receded, he could recognise it for what it was. Panic.

Xander was waiting for a response, so Dean nodded, mute, backing down with his head lowered. The part about the warded apartment sank in, as did the accusation that he didn’t think Xander could protect himself. He was such an asshole. Hell, if anyone could face the demon and live, it was probably Xander. With a little help from his powerful friends. And Dean _knew_ that. He'd always known that. It was one of the reasons he was such an idiot for leaving.

“Yes, the apartment is warded,” Alex said with a kind of strained calm. “I am also hidden from this fucker as long as I stay in the city. Giles and the Council are looking into it, and they might even find a way to kill the thing. But I’m fine for now, and I’ll be fine if I have to leave the apartment any time in the near future. Okay?”

Dean nodded again. A different kind of fear had set in; he’d obviously just trampled all over Alex’s last nerve, and now that the panic had faded, all he could do was berate himself for acting like a fool.

And it wasn’t over. Their positions were reversed and Alex was the one pacing, glaring at him. But before Dean could apologise, the lid came off Xander’s head of steam and he burst out with a different kind of anger.

“You know what? What the fuck, Dean,” he demanded, frustration clear in his voice. “You’re all freaked out on me now, where the hell was my warning about this thing a year ago?”

A sharp twist of regret, and Dean began mournfully, “I told you—“ He didn’t get any further.

“It’s not good enough,” Alex snapped.

The words felt like a slap. Or a bullet. Dean froze.

“Three years, Dean,” Alex said, and the words sounded dragged out, like every syllable hurt. “And you left me like it was _nothing_.”

Dean couldn’t breathe. He stared at Alex, pinned by the hurt in his eyes, shocked by the palpable pain beneath the anger in his voice.

“Now you come here and tell me you’re sorry, and it was the demon, and you were trying to protect me?” Disbelief filtered through Xander’s voice, and to Dean, it suddenly sounded like the weakest, too-little-too-late situation _ever_.

“I’ve spent the past year trying to move on, trying to deal with the fact that the one person I...that you didn’t actually give a shit about me,” Alex ground out. “And now you tell me you love me? You tell me you _lied_ to me? Do you have any idea what this fucking feels like?”

The last few words were furious, shouted hoarse and painful. And they ripped Dean to pieces.

“No,” Dean replied numbly. Distantly, he could feel his heart split in two, feel that horrible emptiness again. And there was nothing he could say, no explanation or excuse. There was no way to make this better; he should have known.

All Dean could think to do was get out, before he made everything worse.

“I’m sorry,” Dean began, voice hoarse. He paused, swallowed hard. God, he should have known it wouldn’t work. Should have known this was how it would go.

“I...I get it,” he admitted haltingly. “And I know I can’t make it better, not really.” It felt like his failure was crashing down around him, and he’d be buried in it. “I’ll go, if you want,” he offered softly.

Alex didn’t look up. He'd crossed his arms and turned away, closing himself off and starting furiously at the kitchen floor. Dean’s heart sank, and he turned to leave. He wasn’t sure where he’d go, or if he’d even make it out of the apartment without falling to pieces. But if Alex wanted him gone, he had to go.

“Stop,” came the disgusted voice behind him.

Dean stopped. His heart stopped at the same time.

“Don’t go. Just...don’t.”

He turned, barely daring to hope. Alex was still staring at the kitchen floor, anger and self-disgust clear on his face. But he didn’t want Dean to leave. Why didn’t he want Dean to leave?

Then for a split second, the twisted look on Xander’s face flickered, replaced with a blank, lost look that was almost frightening. Dean took a step forward, about to ask what was wrong, but the look was already gone, like it’d never been there.

Alex raised his eyes to meet Dean’s. “Let’s just forget it, alright? I’m going to have a shower or something. I’ll get you some clothes and we can go get some food.” He looked exhausted, all of a sudden, and rough with hurt. His voice was almost a plea.

Dean wanted to speak, but settled for nodding when he couldn’t find the words.

Xander walked past him without meeting his eyes again, and Dean collapsed against the counter, all the strength gone out of him. His gut coiled with the dread that he’d just come so close to the edge, so damn close to losing Alex forever. God, he was going to have to stop being such an asshole. He could fuck this up so damn easily, and there was a limit to how many times he could say sorry and still have it mean something.

And then there was that look, that split-second glimpse of something broken in Alex. Had he done that? Had he really hurt Alex that badly? And if he had, why the hell hadn’t Alex slammed the door in his face, or thrown that punch then thrown him out? Or loaded up a shotgun or something?

But then another, more disturbing thought occurred to him. What if it hadn’t been him? What if the darkness in Xander’s eyes had nothing to do with him? Fear gripped the back of his neck. If it hadn’t been him, what the hell had happened while he was gone?

And how the hell was he going to fix it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from a song by the Foo Fighters.


	6. How To Handle A Rope

Xander closed the door of the bathroom, leaned in to turn the shower on, then stripped. His hands were shaking, and he felt numb as he stepped in under the spray. Numb, but also caught in some bizarre place between afterglow and anger.

And as much as he would have liked to take a break from all the out-of-control feelings, as much as he would like to not think about it all, even for ten minutes, his brain wouldn’t let him. He could practically feel it whirring away, rusty with disuse and creaking along to try and process the whole situation.

He just hoped it wasn’t going to process him straight into a straitjacket. But maybe he was being melodramatic.

Xander let his head droop under the spray, water running over his face. By the light that’d been coming through the windows in the bathroom, he could tell it was only mid-afternoon, but fuck, it felt like he’d been awake for days. Like more had happened to him in the past hour or so than in the past month.

The sex, for example.

He frowned. How did he feel about the sex? Other than pretty damn good, he mentally added, blushing. He was going to have to clean that bit of the counter.

Confused, he decided. And also a little worried about what it said about him. Was this the crazy part? Or was he just easy? Surely normal people didn’t react to their exes like that.

Thinking of certain friends of his, he wondered if maybe they did.

But when Dean had said what he’d said, in a way that sounded like the truth...Well, Xander's physical reactions to Dean had always been a little bit out of control. He hadn’t meant for it to go that far, but he’d wanted it. He wasn't about to deny that.

And it hadn’t been completely physical. For a while there, he’d really felt...intimate. Safe, which was bizarre given Dean was responsible for the greatest emotional trauma Xander had ever experienced. But he’d felt close to Dean again, and it’d been like flying.

He shook his head to shake the memory away, but couldn’t keep the smile from tugging at the corners of his mouth. He grabbed the shampoo, not sure if he was supposed to feel this goddamn giddy. Sure, he’d had sex with the person he was in love with, but it was impromptu sex-up-against-the-kitchen-counter, and he really didn’t know if would ever happen again.

He snorted. And if Dean followed it up every time by acting like a jackass and treating Xander like an idiot, it was definitely never going to happen again.

Xander sobered, his mouth twisting with regret as he remembered the look on Dean’s face when he’d yelled at him. And yet...almost. He _almost_ regretted what he’d said, yelling at Dean like that. It was harsh, and it’d come straight out of that scary anger he could feel inside him sometimes. But he meant every word, and he’d needed to say it at least once. And the anger had faded, faster this time, and hell, Dean deserved to get yelled at, for any number of reasons.

But Xander still didn’t want him to go. He’d rather have Dean there to yell at than not there at all.

He just wasn’t sure why.

He shook his head to get the water out of his eyes. The shampoo was gone and his fingers were on the edge of pruning, so it was time to get out. He twisted the shower off and grabbed a towel. When he left the steamed-up bathroom, he managed to resist the urge to look into the living room to check whether Dean was still there. Instead, he went into his bedroom and mechanically pulled on some clothes.

Dean. The more Xander thought about him, the more obvious it was that Dean was just completely freaking out. And as infuriating as it was to be dismissed as some kind of damsel-in-distress, to be treated like the helpless one _again_ , it added to the evidence that Dean was and always had been terrified of the demon getting hold of Xander.

And damn his empathy straight to hell, because the more Xander thought about _that_ , the more he could understand it. He didn’t like it, of course, but he was starting to see how the whole mess had happened, how it was one bad decision that led to everything else, how it was Dean trying to...trying to protect him.

From the demon that killed Mary.

Not the First, Xander had to remind himself, clenching his teeth. She was also Dean’s mother, or had been. And it was difficult to separate her from the entirely frightening manipulative figure that’d appeared in his apartment that night, but if he did, if he imagined her human, as a mother...

Dean’s mother. Warm, loving. Beloved. John must have loved her so much. To hunt something for twenty years... Xander mulled it over, wondering what it took to drive that kind of revenge, that kind of anger.

Xander couldn’t help the pang of sympathy for John. But when he thought about what had come out of that drive, and that John had turned his back on his son...the pang didn’t last long. Dean must be devastated, because while Xander hated John for just about everything he’d done to Dean, he’d never doubted Dean loved his father.

So the idea that John had rejected Dean wasn’t a happy one, even if it meant Xander could have Dean all to himself. That was never how he’d wanted this to go.

So...did that mean it was going? Was he actually going to do this? Had he decided?

Xander frowned, and the magic eight ball in his brain came up with ‘Try again later.’ No, he hadn’t decided. He was getting less and less angry with Dean, and more and more aware that Dean was just scared out of his mind.

Sure, Dean sucked at being scared; some of the anger came back to Xander every time Dean treated him like he was made of breakable crystal. But now that Xander had all the facts, now that he knew it was Mary, that Dean’s fear was rooted so close to home...

It was hard to hate him for it.

And Dean seemed to hate himself almost enough for the both of them, anyway, Xander realised, surprised at how... _sad_ the thought made him.

With that thought, Xander dropped his head in his hands, despairing. Jesus, he was a basket-case. He was an inch away from forgiving Dean for everything, from taking his word for it and letting him...just letting him _in_ , and pretending like the past year hadn’t even happened.

And God, part of him wished so hard that he could do that.

But he still felt caught somewhere between reaching out for what he wanted, and fearing it for what he knew it could do to him. For what it had already done to him.

Because he could be angry with Dean for leaving, he could yell, Dean could grovel, and Xander could forgive him. But Xander could never forgive Dean for what happened with the First.

He wasn’t even sure if there was anything to _forgive_. Dean wasn’t really to blame.

But it didn’t make the aching hollow inside Xander any smaller. The one that echoed with the words the First had used against him that night.

 _Dean doesn’t love you, Alex._

And that was where the crazy came in. Being in love with Dean had kind of fucked him up, he decided, suddenly exhausted again. And if it all fell apart again, this time he might not survive.

Somehow, through the self-pity and worry, Xander suddenly realised he was sitting fully dressed on the crumpled sheets of the bed they'd slept in, staring fixedly at the floor.

Christ. More crazy. He’d really needed the time to think, but the view wasn’t that interesting.

Mentally pushing all philosophical concerns about his love live away, and hoping he hadn’t been zoned out for too long, Xander shifted his focus back to practical reality, and went over to the wardrobe. He dithered briefly over underwear, then pulled out an extra pair of jeans, a t-shirt and a sweater. On his way back to the living room, he grabbed a spare towel out of the hall closet.

Maybe they needed to slow down, take a breather, Xander decided. Hell, he didn’t need to sort all of this crap out today. If Dean meant what he said about staying, they could at least have breakfast. Breakfast would help, and there’d been too much...activity, and too little coffee.

Coffee. God, no wonder his brain wasn’t working properly.

Still feeling unsettled, Xander went back into the living room, fully prepared to say something casual about the clothes and suggest going out for a meal to give them both a break from the stress.

But something in the expression on Dean’s face made Xander’s breath catch.

It wasn’t a smile, or a frown. Dean looked anxious and a little sad as Xander approached him. Then their eyes met, and it felt like a thousand unspoken words passed between them.

Time slowed, but Xander felt his heart speed up, felt it beat desperately as the moment stretched.

He took a deep breath.

Dean was caught, too. The sadness didn’t disappear completely, but there was awe in his eyes, and just for a moment Xander felt like Dean could see all of him, all the parts Xander never showed anybody. And Dean’s eyes were warm, like he wanted all of it.

The moment faded, and Xander watched the blush hit the tips of Dean’s ears.

“We need to slow down,” he blurted out. Dean, who’d been reaching forward to take the clothes, stopped, confused.

“We...I...need time to make sense of all of this, to work out...I just need time to think. It’s all happening too fast, and we’ll just have more of...” He looked towards the kitchen again.

Dean followed his gaze, then looked away, uncomfortable.

Xander met Dean’s eyes and tried to speak more slowly. “I spent a year thinking you didn’t care, and now I think I believe you when you say you do but I don't know why, and...I guess what I mean is, a year doesn’t go away overnight.” He took a deep breath, nervously tracking the hurt look on Dean’s face.

“So...can you give me time? To think about it all?” he asked hesitantly, his heart in his throat. If Dean didn’t understand, if he thought it was blame, or accusation... Xander didn’t know what he’d do if Dean left.

Dean met his eyes, and, after a pause, said seriously, “Yeah, I can.”

Another million unsaid words seemed to pass between them.

The tension broke, and they did an awkward shuffle around each other. Dean headed for the shower, and Xander, blushing a little and not really sure why, headed for the kitchen, intent on coffee.

Behind him, Dean said, “It wasn’t nothing, leaving you. And even if it had been the right decision, I still would have hated it.” His voice sounded pained, and honest.

Xander was frozen by the confession. By the time he turned to look, Dean was already disappearing into the bathroom.

***

Dean stood in the bathroom, t-shirt in one hand, the shower next to him forgotten. Steam swirled around the room. Remembered grief was pouring through him; it was only telling himself Alex was alive and well in the next room that stopped him from completely breaking down.

Alex, who’d died when Sunnydale fell.

He’d meant what he said. His life had ended that day. It had been like a moment of clarity; he’d seen all his mistakes, all the regrets and wasted time, and he’d truly believed he’d never be able to fix it all.

And now, with Alex walking and talking and breathing like a miracle, it felt like his heart was slowly coughing back to life like an old engine. Like part of him was waking up.

Slowly, but faster when he was looking at Alex, watching him breathe, touching his warm skin. Those rushed moments in the kitchen were another kind of miracle, and Dean was trying hard not to pretend they were a promise, trying to tell himself it might never happen again. As much as he wanted it, wanted Alex, he couldn’t build his hopes up too high. His record for fucking it all up was too strong.

But while he was counting miracles, he spared a second for the fact that somehow, despite his deep, justifiable anger, Alex didn’t seem to want him to leave.

Dean didn’t know why, didn’t know how Alex could even stand to look at him. Hell, he was so ashamed of himself, he didn’t want to meet his own eyes in the bathroom mirror.

But Alex had looked at him over the pile of clothes, and the anger hadn’t been there. There’d been uncertainty and doubt, maybe some panic, but somehow, after all this time, Alex managed to look at Dean with something like understanding. Maybe even affection, although that could be wishful thinking.

Either way, it was definitely another miracle.

Then he’d heard that stammered plea for time. Time to talk about it, to sort it out, to work out what was going on before they made any more mistakes.

Alex really was the smart one, sometimes.

Decoding the words, Dean had heard the offer of a second chance. Or third, maybe, he wasn’t really sure how you were supposed to count these things. And, he decided, feeling more grateful than he could bear to think about, he was gonna take that offer with both hands.

So there’d be no more running, no more panicking. He wasn’t going anywhere. Unless Alex told him to, and then only if Dean really believed he meant it.

And even then, even if him and Alex couldn’t get back to where they had been for whatever reason, even if all they were from here on out was friends, Dean was determined not to let Alex out of his sight until the demon was dealt with.

Which was the decision he should have made a year ago, but hell, better late than never.

So no matter how long it took, even if they didn’t see it again for another twenty years, Dean was going to be there. No matter how hard it got between the two of them or...or if John turned up, Dean thought with a grimace. No matter what happened, he was staying. The demon was going to get to Alex over his dead body.

Dean frowned, examining that thought. He meant it, he realised. If Alex went down over this, Dean wanted to go with him. The thought of going on after, if something happened to Alex...

He shuddered. God, he already knew how it felt, and it’d be worse if it was his fault. Better to die.

Instead of feeling freaked out by that decision, Dean felt like a weight was lifting off his chest, like some of the iron bands that had been tight around his heart since he picked up the phone outside a motel room in Nebraska were starting to come loose. Just making the decision was a weight off his mind. He had a purpose, a goal.

Newly determined, Dean finally pulled off the rest of his clothes and stepped into the shower. Hot water poured over his bruises and scars, and it felt like he was washing away his mistakes. For the first time in a long time, Dean let himself hope.

***

Xander watched impatiently as his coffee mug circled in the microwave. He felt twitchy, and hoped coffee and a breakfast might convince some part of his brain that this could be a semi-normal day after all and calm him down a little more. He bit his lip, the refrain of what the hell was he doing going through his mind again.

He was still worried that he was giving in too easily to this, that he’d regret anything he let happen. What if Dean left? What if Daddy called, and Dean backed out, and everything went back to the way it had been? Or what if Dean just...left. Not for any reason, just...because.

But Dean wanted to stay. He was begging, actually, begging to stay. So...could Xander take the risk?

Could he risk not taking the risk? If he showed Dean the door, if he told him he never wanted to see him again...

Part of him would just shrivel up and die. The way he’d been feeling this past year would be just the start of it. He was dead certain of that.

And aside from all it, aside from wanting Dean to love him so badly it hurt to breathe, Xander wanted his friend back. They’d been lovers for years, but they’d been friends first. And he missed that as much as anything else.

Because that was another thread in the tangle of thoughts he called his brain. Seeing Dean face-to-face, instead of the First or the vampires or the gutless phone call version of Dean, he was suddenly seeing the guy who’d been his friend. Somewhere, underneath the anger and betrayal, there were still all the years of just being together, and the still-strong feeling that Dean knew him better than anyone.

It was weird, like after all this time he’d forgotten who the real Dean was, somehow. And he wasn’t the perfect, idolised lover Xander’d imagined he’d lost, or the cowardly bastard that broke his heart. He was just Dean. Real, unimagined, and making mistakes just cause he was human. Just cause he was _Dean_.

A very physically real Dean who’d apologised, told Xander he loved him, and asked to stay.

The tiny spark, the one that’d flickered on when the demon said Dean loved him, got a little bit warmer, and it felt like some of the icy shards in his chest melted, just a little. For a moment, he let himself hope, just a little bit. Maybe this was it, maybe he could turn a corner, here. Maybe Dean could help him get his life back.

At that moment, Dean came into the kitchen. Xander watched as he came close but not too close, crossing his arms like he wasn’t sure what else to do with them, and awkwardly leant one hip against the counter.

“Hey,” he said casually.

The sight of him – clean, dressed in Xander’s clothes, and looking a million times less broken than he had that morning – made the brand new warm patch in Xander’s chest glow just a bit brighter.

“Hey yourself,” he replied evenly. Dean grinned, a warm, blinding smile that Xander couldn’t help but admire. Then he blushed as he realised Dean was standing in exactly the spot where they’d...yeah. He cleared his throat, looked away.

“So, uh...it’s been an interesting morning.”

Dean snorted.

Xander looked over, met his friend’s eyes. “Breakfast?”

With another grin, Dean replied, “Breakfast.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from a song by Queens of the Stone Age.


	7. Another Version of the Truth

Boots, weapons, jackets and extras – Dean accepted the knife and the black wool gloves and hat Xander offered, but refused the scarf – and they were ready. The diner was only a few blocks from the apartment, so they walked through downtown Cleveland’s frostbitten streets.

Once out on the street, out of the safety of the apartment, Dean found his eyes flicking to every stranger’s face, compulsively checking people’s eyes for any sign of black or yellow. It left him feeling strained, but then Alex said, “Here it is,” and Dean suddenly found himself in a booth in the corner of a small diner. When he looked, they were sitting within easy enough distance of the front door and the door through to the kitchen, where there was probably another exit, so he tried to relax.

It got easier when the warmth started thawing him out. He felt like the skin on his ears and the back of his neck was melting, but in the best possible way, and it eased some of the tension.

They ordered from a menu full of homestyle meals, lunches cause it was way too late for actual breakfast, but Dean found himself pretty willing to make do. He was hungry for the first time in months. And Sam would have been so pleased to see he was eating, but Dean buried the pang of loss that thought gave him and concentrated on whether he wanted meatloaf or a burger with onions.

By the time the waitress was gone, though, questions were gnawing at Dean again, and he couldn’t help but ask.

“Okay, so...about the demon. Your apartment is warded, and you said you were safe in the city, but...I don’t know, shouldn’t we try to come up with some kind of plan? I don’t want you trapped in Cleveland for the rest of your life. Hell, _no-one_ wants to be trapped in Cleveland,” he added lightly, trying to cover the anxiety.

Alex offered him an understanding look. “Yeah, I get that. I’ll call Giles when we get back to the apartment, see what he’s got. Don’t worry about it, Dean.”

The casualness of Xander’s tone made Dean’s hackles rise, and he couldn’t control the shadows of his earlier panic when they started rising in his belly again.

“Don’t worry about it?” Dean repeated, disbelief colouring his tone. “Look, can you at least pretend to be a little bit freaked out about this, please? This thing is after you,” he enunciated, meeting Xander’s eyes to try and make the point sink in. “I know I’m freaking out, _again_ , but seriously. I have no options. I don’t know if I can do anything to keep you safe, and thinking about it just makes me...”

He swallowed, sour and shaking, suddenly very conscious of the crowd around them. “Don’t tell me not to worry, Alex, I...”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Xander said anxiously, reaching across the table for Dean’s hand. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

He glanced around the diner in reaction to Dean’s edginess, but no-one was paying any attention to them. He looked back at Dean, trying to meet his eyes. “Giles is working on it. He has half the Council working on it with him. And Willow‘ll be free to help out again in a couple of days. You can tell them everything you know, and we’ll go from there. And I’ll be careful, Dean, I swear. Okay?”

At Dean’s unconvinced expression, Xander added, “And maybe I should have explained better before, but Willow said the hellmouth should act like a black hole or something. Something about how the magic here should keep the demon’s radar on the fritz. It’d actually have to come here and look for me, and she said she laid some kind of false trail from the warehouse, to send it in the other direction. So it’s not going to come here anytime soon,” he said calmly, clearly, obviously trying to make it sink in this time.

Dean heaved out a breath, relief that Xander’s faith in his friends wasn’t misplaced. “Yeah, okay. I know, I know, I’m just being...so fucking ridiculous.”

A glance across the table, and the anxiety had been replaced; Alex was looking at him like he was some kind of adorable kitten. Embarrassed, Dean jerked his hand out from under Xander’s and crossed his arms. “Don’t look at me like that.”

Bastard didn’t even try to hide his smile. “Sorry.”

Dean squinted back across the table. “I’m serious, okay? This thing could still kill you and me and all of your friends in some very painful ways. We can’t relax too much.”

The smile was gone. “I know. We’ll work something out. After breakfast.”

Dean nodded, a little tired and suddenly hungry.

“You’ve just gotta remember that you’re not alone in this. Not anymore,” Alex added softly.

Dean glanced at him, surprised. “Yeah, I guess I’m not,” he said after a pause.

And that might have been the end of it, if Xander hadn’t caught the disturbed expression on Dean’s face. He’d frowned, not sure why the idea of Xander’s super friends jumping into the fray had him so uneasy.

“What?” Xander asked.

Dean shook his head. “Nothing. I’m...I’m just...” He hesitated, rearranged his cutlery to buy himself a moment to think.

“It's just that it's my fault you're in this. I’ve just dumped this huge mess on all of you, you know? Like you didn’t have enough to deal with already. And if someone else gets hurt because of this...Buffy or Willow or anyone...You’d...I don’t want that,” he finished lamely.

Xander looked at him closely, and said sympathetically, “First? This particular problem isn't exactly your fault. Second? It’s the job.” He went on when Dean would have protested. “I know that it’s more personal for you, and for me too, now. But the risks are always the same, and Buffy and Willow, and Giles and everyone else we’ll be working with, well, they all know. None of them are civilians.”

Dean kept his eyes on the tabletop for a second and tried to be comforted. When he looked up again, he said, “I know. And if I could keep your girls away from it, I would.”

Xander smiled, and Dean knew he appreciated the sentiment. “You know what?” he said conspiratorially. “I don’t think we could stop them if we tried.” At Dean’s half-smile, he went on. “Willow and Buffy got kinda pissed off when it came after me. Buffy’s got a situation in Sweden at the moment, and I think Willow convinced her we could handle it, but if she was here she’d probably be all over it already. With a variety of weapons.”

Dean smirked at the image.

Xander went on. “And with the way Giles and Willow were when I talked to them on the phone yesterday? Neither of us will probably even get a look-in. They could have it all taken care of before we get back from breakfast. Or lunch, or whatever,” Xander added, waving a hand around at the diner.

Dean thought about that ridiculously optimistic scenario for a second, and with a chuckle that was mostly air he said, “I don’t even care anymore. I don’t care who kills this thing, I just want it gone.” He hesitated, wiping a hand over his mouth, then laughed roughly. “Dad would probably kick my ass to hear me say that.”

Xander frowned. “Why?”

Dean shrugged. “He’ll be pissed off if he gets left out of the fight, you know? He wants the demon gone, but he wants to do it himself, I think, more than anything.” He paused. “And I guess I can see why he’d want that, after all these years, but...”

He stopped, brooding. The idea of anyone other than John killing the demon felt wrong, but maybe it was just some weird kind of loyalty he still had towards the old bastard.

Xander had been studying him carefully, and eventually said, “Dean, he’s still your father. I—“

“Yeah, I’m well aware of that,” Dean interrupted bitterly.

Alex paused, clenching his jaw for a second. “I was just gonna say that I hate how things are between you, and I wish—“ He cleared his throat, checking himself. “I didn’t want it to end up like this.”

Dean half-smiled at the avoidance of the ‘w-word’, as Alex had always called it, but it was an empty gesture. His chest felt clamped, and he wondered if his hands would be shaking if they weren’t so tightly clenched together.

“It’s not you. It’s him,” he managed through the shard in his throat. _It’s me_ , he wanted to add. He paused, swallowed, then furrowed his brow hopefully. “Can we talk about something else?”

“Sure,” Xander said quietly, trying to keep the sympathy out of his voice. His eyes flicked around for a second, obviously searching his mind for a neutral topic. “How about those...sports teams?” he finally said awkwardly.

Dean laughed unexpectedly, and managed an eye-roll. “You’re such a dork.”

Their eyes met again, and Alex was smiling. They shared another million unsaid words.

The approach of the waitress with their food broke the moment. “Alright,” Dean said enthusiastically. He’d been getting hungrier as they talked, and the steaming plate in front of him looked fantastic. “God, this looks good. I can’t remember the last time food looked this good,” he admitted.

Xander raised an eyebrow across the table. “Dude, it’s meatloaf.”

“And cheese fries,” Dean reminded him unnecessarily, indicating his plate.

Xander’s eyebrow stayed raised.

“I don’t know, feels like I haven’t been hungry in a while or something,” he muttered, then busied himself with ketchup and salt, keeping his eyes on the table. He could feel Xander watching him for a moment, could practically feel him thinking. He didn’t respond to Dean’s comment, though. He just shifted his boot under the table so his leg rested firmly against Dean’s.

Dean froze at the touch, and took a long look across the food to Xander. He briefly felt anxious, for no reason he could name, but Xander didn’t disappear, and the feeling passed. They dug into the food, and soon Dean was laughing as Alex described the grand finale episode of a show Dean used to tease him for watching.

When they’d cleaned their plates, Dean briefly contemplated pie, but instead asked, “So what happened, anyway? In Sunnydale?” He was shooting for casual, but he’d figured out that this could be a landmine. “I mean, they blew up the whole town?”

“Yeah. And actually, that was us, kind of,” Alex admitted.

Stunned, Dean felt his eyebrows reach for his hairline.

Xander grimaced and opened his mouth to talk. He stopped, hesitated, and scrubbed a hand through his hair as if trying to decide something. “Yeah, okay. Can we talk about this back at the apartment?” He gestured at the crowded diner around them.

Dean nodded silently, and they left their booth and hit the street.

But as soon they turned the corner onto Xander’s block, Dean stopped cold.

Sam was standing on the sidewalk below the apartment building, looking up at the windows. After a moment, he looked down at what Dean realised was a cellphone in his hand. He couldn’t tell if Sam was waiting for a call or deciding whether or not to dial.

Alex had stopped a few paces past Dean and looked back at him. “What is it?” He followed Dean’s gaze, and must have deciphered the look on Dean’s face. “Do you want me to get rid of him?” he offered.

Dean, torn, looked at Xander for a second. The concern on his face was more than he deserved. And even though the offer was tempting, he shook his head and braced himself.

As Dean walked towards his brother, he could feel Alex behind him the whole way.

“Sam,” Dean called out when he was a few feet away.

Sam looked up, startled, but his surprise quickly gave way to relief. Before Dean could react, he had six-feet-something of Sammy grabbing him by the front of his shirt.

“Dude, I’m gonna kill you. You could have crashed whatever heap of junk you drove here, you know that? You ever do that to me again, and I swear to God, I will kick your ass,” Sam promised, pulling Dean into a fierce hug.

Emotion broke inside him, and Dean hugged back hard. When he left, he’d been wishing he’d had the time and the guts to say goodbye properly. He’d been so afraid he’d never see his brother again; he wished he’d believed Sammy wouldn’t let him go that easily.

Eventually, they separated, awkward, coughing and trying to pretend they hadn’t been acting so girly. “Sorry,” Dean offered. “I just had to get here, you know.”

Sam shook his head. “You could have told me. Damn it, Dean, I would have driven you here.”

Surprised, Dean blurted, “Really?”

This just prompted a very familiar ‘you’re an idiot’ look from Sam. The brief frustration was quickly replaced with concern, as Sam said in a low voice, “Dean, you know I don’t care, right? I found a photo of you two, and you looked so... I just want you to be happy,” he finished awkwardly.

“Okay,” Dean said, still a little startled. Sam’s anxious reassurances left a tiny patch of warmth in the middle of his chest. “Aw, Sammy,” he added bashfully, knowing Sam would get what he meant from the happiness he couldn't keep out of his voice.

Sam grinned at him, and reflex had Dean grinning back. He glanced over at Alex, who’d been watching the reunion warily. Dean was about to introduce him to his brother when Xander’s gaze shifted, and he tensed as his gaze fell on the entrance to the apartment building.

Dean quickly over, only to feel his stomach turn to lead.

John was standing halfway down the apartment steps, watching his sons with a hesitant look on his face.

“Dean…” he began, but he didn’t get to finish. Dean had already pulled away from Sam and walked away as fast as he could go without actually running. Every instinct in him was telling him to get out, to get away as fast as he could. He wasn’t ready to do this again.

John hurried past Sam and Xander, and caught up to Dean before he rounded the corner. “Dean, please.”

Dean snatched his arm away from John’s grasp. “No. I told you,” he said wildly, fear roiling in his gut. “I told you I didn’t need this. I don’t need to hear you tell me I’m not your son anymore.”

“Dean, stop! Just listen to me!” John interrupted with a shout.

“Why? So you can tell me how much of a fuck-up you think I am?” Dean demanded. “I get it. You didn’t need to come all this way to tell me that.”

God, he didn’t want this. He’d known all along what his father’s reaction would be, but expecting the worst didn’t make it suck any less. He tried to bury it, tried to push the pain down inside him somewhere.

“Look, I get it. It’s over. We’re done, so we can just leave it,” he said bitterly.

“We’re not damn well done,” John insisted angrily. “Dean, I don’t care who you’re in love with. I should have told you at the hospital, I should have told you I was proud of you. I meant to, and…I’m sorry.” Anger had quickly become sorrow, and John finished quickly, like he was trying to get it all out before Dean took off.

It took Dean a second to work out what he’d just heard. He stared at John, bewildered. What the hell?

“Dean, I’m sorry,” John repeated sadly.

Dean kept staring, stunned.

John came forward slowly, like Dean was some wild animal he was afraid of startling. One hand rested gently on his shoulder, as John took a careful look at his face. Then his father pulled him into a tight hug.

Stunned again, it took Dean several minutes to work out what was going on. He couldn’t quite bring himself to hug back, but when they pulled apart, he was shaking. “Dad, I…”

John moved a hand to Dean’s face, forcing him to make eye contact. “You’re my son. Nothing in the entire world can change that. And definitely not this,” John said finitely, with the same seriousness he usually reserved for training or orders, or for facts deeply important to their survival.

Dean couldn’t believe this was happening and had no fucking clue how to react. Should he accept it? Try to fight? Just take off, make a run for it?

He looked over at Sam, who looked back encouragingly. Dean took a moment to wonder whether his father was possessed again, but…

“Dean, I swear. I don’t care who you’re in love with,” John repeated gently, still watching for a reaction.

And still all Dean could do was stare at him. This was real?

He knew his father better than anyone. And somehow, even though it made him feel like his world had just come unmoored in some important way, he knew John was telling the truth.

Still dazed, he looked over to see Alex watching them from the sidewalk outside the apartment building. The expression on his face was unreadable.

Turning back to his father, Dean gently freed himself from his grip and stepped back. John watched him, anxious. Maybe a few days ago, Dean would have hated the scrutiny, but now...

“Do you want to meet Alex?” he asked seriously. His heart was thudding painfully, and he was pretty sure his hands were shaking again.

A wide smile broke out on John’s face. “Yeah, that’d be good.”

Shocky and still reeling, Dean led John back down the street to Alex, collecting Sam, who’d followed them halfway. Alex was still where he had been, standing near the entrance to the building.

Dean walked right up to him, and John and Sam followed.

Even though most of him was completely unable to believe he was actually doing this, that this was actually happening, Dean managed to say the words he’d been wanting to say for he didn’t know how long.

“Dad, Sam, this is Alex. Alex—this is my family.”

Alex just looked at him, and for a split-second, the look in his eyes was brutally empty, like Dean was staring into the dead eyes of the Alex in his nightmares. It took Dean’s breath away.

But it was gone just as quickly, before Dean could even react to it. Alex turned to John and Sam, and his expression was guarded again but normal.

Sam reacted warmly, smiling and reaching over to shake Alex’s hand with genuine pleasure. “Hey, it’s good to meet you. Real good, actually.”

“Good to meet you, too,” Alex replied, accepting the handshake politely, if without Sam’s enthusiasm.

Then it was John’s turn. He offered his hand. Alex shook it. Dean thought he might just pass out from the pressure.

“I’m John,” his father said simply.

“Alex.”

***

As soon as Xander saw Dean’s expression change, from defensive and pained to astonished, even awe-struck, he knew it was over. Dean would be leaving again.

And Xander felt something inside him shrink back down to nothing.

If Dean believed his father was telling the truth, if he thought he still had a chance at the old man’s approval, he’d never leave his family. He’d never stay with Xander.

 _Wow, it’s just past five o’clock – it only took twelve and a half hours this time_ , he thought, bitter somewhere underneath the numbness that spread through him. _That’s gotta be a record, even for us_. And God, he was such an idiot. He should have goddamn known.

He tried not to let his thoughts show, shook Sam and John’s hands without giving anything away. There was no need to make a scene, no need to try and fight. This was one battle he’d never be able to win.

Dean was going to leave, and there was nothing Xander could do about it.

***

Alex was taller than John had expected. Taller, broader through the shoulders, and altogether more capable-looking. Too thin for his height, though. His hands had calluses, a good sign that he was a worker. Dark hair, dark eyes, a serious face. Tense and uncomfortable, although John couldn’t exactly blame him. Who knew what Dean had said to him over the years.

Years. This man had known his son for years, and seen a side of him John never knew existed. But he couldn’t resent it; the images the demon had shown him were still too strong, showing this boy caring for Dean, giving him friendship and acceptance when no-one else had. Giving him peace.

But that wasn’t the boy standing in front of him now. He didn’t look like a boy anymore, more like a man. Something had happened to Alex over the years, something that changed him. Made him weary, John realised, and he felt concern flare inside him.

Would Alex be strong enough to deal with what was coming?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from a song by Nine Inch Nails.


	8. Fortunate Son

Making an unspoken decision not to continue the family reunion on the street, the four of them headed up to the apartment. Once inside, Dean scanned the living room for anything out of place, anything embarrassing that might give something away. He didn’t know why, didn’t know what he was looking for or what he thought he had to hide, but he had fuck-all clue what else to do.

It was going to take his brain a while to catch up to all of this. Hell, to even _believe_ all of it. Never, not in a million years, would he have thought this was possible.

But he knew his father, knew when he was lying and when he wasn’t. And John was telling the truth.

He didn’t care that Alex was a guy.

Dean tried to ignore the obvious, painful realisation that it meant everything he’d done, everything he’d hidden, had all been a waste of time. Three years, and he could have been honest about Alex the whole time.

He glanced over. Alex still hadn’t said anything. He looked pale and sort of shocked, but Dean couldn’t tell what he was thinking. It practically itched – something about Alex was inscrutable in a way it hadn’t been half an hour ago, and Dean couldn’t work if his silence was bad or not. He couldn’t work out how Alex was reacting to this, and what he wanted Dean to do about it.

“So,” John began, when the awkward silence reached too high a pitch. “Dean, you look good, considering. How’s your head, son?”

Politeness. And that was freakin’ weird. But the old man was making the effort. “Fine. I feel fine,” Dean replied, still darting glances at Alex.

“You sure you’re okay?” John asked, concerned. “Have you seen a doctor since you got here?”

“No, but I’m fine. Don’t worry.”

“Of course we’re worried, Dean,” Sam interjected. “You almost died, and the doctors said...”

“Alright,” Dean said, interrupting before he could get into the gory details. “I know what they said. I’ll go see someone here in Cleveland.”

Xander was watching the exchange, his coat off and folded under his arms. Dean followed suit with his own jacket, pulling off the hat as well, and Sam and John did the same. With a sigh, Alex dropped his coat over one of the chairs at the dining table.

“So, can I get anybody a drink or anything?” he asked politely, sounding distant, like they were all strangers who’d just turned up at his house unexpectedly. Which, Dean had to admit, some of them were.

“No. Thank you,” John said. Sam hesitated, then spoke up.

“Actually, I’m kind of starving,” he admitted sheepishly, glancing between John and Dean. “Maybe I should go and get something down the street? I don’t want to put you out,” he said to Alex, who shrugged.

“It’s fine. If you’re not hungry for anything more complicated than a sandwich, I think I can manage it.”

“Yeah,” Sam smiled. “That’d be great.” He followed Alex through to the kitchen.

Dean heard Sam add, “Emotional reunions always make me hungry.” He saw Alex give Sam the weird look that statement deserved, but Dean missed his reply.

He was alone in the room with John.

Immediately tense, he half-sat, half-leaned on the edge of the dining table. From there, he could see the whole room, see into the kitchen, and he also had a clear path to the front door.

He watched the old man circle, taking in the white walls, neutral carpet, unobtrusive sofas. There was nothing on the bookshelves, no pictures on the walls. No clues to tell his father anything about Alex.

Eventually, John looked up and caught Dean’s gaze. Head cocked, John moved around until he was leaning against the back of the sofa, directly in Dean’s line of vision.

They were quiet for a moment, just long enough for every nerve in Dean’s body to start screaming with tension.

“So,” John said, out of nowhere. “How are things going? With him, I mean.”

Dean looked up sharply. John was watching him with a look that was partly curious, but still full of the same sadness as before. He frowned and didn’t answer, tried to puzzle out what his father was thinking instead.

As Dean’s silence stretched, John looked down again and sighed. “Dean, Sam told me some of what the past year’s been like, and what happened with Alex. I know that there’s no real way for me to make this better, but I’m so sorry.”

“If I hadn’t assumed...” Dean said, after a slight hesitation, automatically ready to admit his mistake.

“You shouldn’t have been able to make that assumption,” John interrupted, voice raw and frustrated. “You should have known you could...I don’t know, come to me with something like this, and known that I wouldn’t have cared. You should have known I’d be proud of you, no matter what. And if you didn’t...it means I screwed up, son, not you.”

Dean stared. “Wow,” he managed. “I...I don’t know what to say, Dad.”

“Don’t say anything,” John sniffed. “Just...I mean it, you know?”

A strange relief trickled through Dean, and he managed to give John a teary smile. He half-laughed at himself, feeling a little emotionally shipwrecked. John laughed too, and crossed the space between them with a big smile on his face. He leaned next to Dean and grabbed the back of his neck to pull him in for an awkward, sideways hug.

Under the onslaught, Dean’s laugh quickly became a shudder.

John pulled back. “What? What is it?”

Dean pulled in a deep breath, trying to get himself back under control. “Nothing, it’s just... I am so fucking scared,” he admitted shakily. It had been building inside him for hours, a helpless fear that got worse every time he saw Alex’s face in his mind.

Because with it came the image of Alex pinned to a fiery ceiling, and yellow eyes mocking him.

 _Me and Alex are gonna have a lot of fun together, once I’m done here._

“Dean, we’re going to find this demon,” John assured him, a familiar steely note in his voice. “We’re not going to let it get near him.”

Dean let out another shaky breath. First Alex, now John, forced to reassure him. God, he was being such a freaking idiot about all of this. It was time he remembered his job.

Find the evil things, and kill them.

“Yeah, I know. I mean, you brought the colt, right,” he said, knowing John’s answer would be a reassuring yes, and he'd be able to get his heart rate back under control.

When John didn’t speak, when his silence felt a little too weighted, Dean glanced over. “Dad? You brought it, right?”

John was staring at the floor. Slowly, heavily, like it was hard to say, he admitted, “Yes, I brought it. But...but there’s no bullets left, Dean.”

Dean blinked. “What? But there was one left. It should...” His brain caught up with his mouth and he demanded, “Did something happen? Are you guys alright?”

“We’re fine, Dean. It didn’t come after us. But...it’s okay, we just have to find another weapon,” John said, like he was steeling himself for the task.

“Find another—“ Dean broke off, disbelieving and starting to get seriously weirded out. He’d thought there _was_ no other weapon. And if they hadn’t been attacked but the bullet was gone, if they’d been forced to use that last bullet on anything other than the demon, John should have been furious.

Instead, he looked...guilty.

“What happened?” Dean wasn’t sure if he even wanted to know.

John was silent for a long moment. “I was planning something, and it didn’t work. I didn’t...” He broke off and crossed his arms defensively, staring down at the floor.

A cold feeling settled in the pit of Dean’s stomach. He’d never seen his father look so awkward, so uneasy.

“What did you do?”

***

“Emotional reunions always make me hungry,” Sam said, and Xander could see the friendly appeal in his eyes. But Xander felt numb and distant, like he was miles away. Maybe it was wishful thinking, cause he’d rather be anywhere but here.

When he’d realised Dean was going to be able to rejoin his father’s fight, Xander immediately wanted him gone. He wanted it over with, quick and final, like a bullet to the head. If Dean was leaving, they could put an end to this thing once and for all, and Xander could go back to dealing with all the other shit in his life.

But the Winchesters had taken off their coats like they’d be staying a while, and he’d had to force the anticipation of pain away. _Don’t care_ , he instructed himself. It was easier than dealing with the tension screaming through him – every second Dean was here, every second Xander had to wait before he left, was torture. The only way to cope with what was obviously going to be a long, painful goodbye was to just shut it all off.

So he gave Sam a sceptical look, like he wasn’t freefalling. “Really? You’ve had so many Big Chill moments that you can tell?”

Sam grinned, the sheepish look back on his face. “Okay, so ten hours in a car without a break for lunch might have had something to do with it.”

Alex turned to the cabinet above the counter behind him. “You guys followed Dean straight here?” he asked neutrally.

“Yeah, once we realised he was gone. He had a twelve-hour start, but we got here as soon as we could.” Sam paused, and Xander didn’t comment. After a moment, Sam added quietly, “It was pretty obvious where he’d be going.”

 _Okay_ , Xander thought. Privately, he disagreed, but whatever. He turned back to Sam, peanut butter in hand, and said, “You know, he seemed pretty sure he was never going to see either of you again.”

Sam frowned. “That just makes him an idiot. Thinking Dad would care is one thing, but I thought he knew I would never...” He stopped, paused, a hurt expression on his face. But he seemed to shake it off quickly. “He’s my brother, you know?”

More earnest, sensitive eyes, and Xander offered him a vague smile. “Even if he wasn’t,” Sam added. “Even if you were just two random guys, what does it matter, you know? Love is rare enough as it is.”

It should have sounded like a cliché, but for a second, there was something heartbreaking in Sam’s expression, something that was obviously the product of everything he’d been through and everything they’d seen on the road. It pricked at Xander, and he didn’t have the heart to point out that there was never going to be a happy ending for this particular story. It felt kinder to leave Sam in the dark for a while.

Sam spent a few more moments frowning at the counter top, and had just opened his mouth to say something else when Xander thumped a plate down in front of him. Sam looked down at the peanut butter sandwich, and said sheepishly, “Thanks, I was gonna help you with that.”

“S’okay,” Xander replied, surprised to find himself liking Sam. He’d never really expected to meet the guy, but always figured he’d hate him if it happened.

He’d hurt Dean so badly when he left the family. Not so that the casual observer would notice, and even Xander might not have known if Dean hadn’t gotten drunk one time, loosened up enough that the betrayed hurt spilled out. Sam’s absence was too big for Dean, too huge and incomprehensible to talk about easily. And the worst thing was that Xander knew all it would have taken to make him happy, to ease Dean’s abandonment, was a single phone call from Sam.

Sam had never called, and they’d never talked about it again. Xander had secretly vowed to smack Sam in the head if he ever met him.

But looking at Sam now, Xander was struck by how young he looked. He would have been eighteen when he left, and God knows people do stupid shit when they’re eighteen.

Like save impossibly pretty guys from vampires in alleys, and proceed to fall for them.

Xander sighed. Hopefully Sam was enough of a grown-up now to pull his head out of his ass. Hopefully he’d be able to look out for Dean once they were out on the road, and make sure Dean didn’t do anything stupid when they went up against the demon.

And God, how was that all going to work now? Once Dean left, Xander wouldn’t be able to stand talking to him. How would they coordinate the fight against the demon?

Maybe he could just leave Giles and Willow to handle it, and disappear somewhere in Europe. Or Africa. Stay away until the job was done and the Winchesters were gone, out of contact again.

Sadness nearly demolished Xander’s numb haze. The glimmers of hope he’d started to feel, the way he’d let himself think that this might be a new start for them, it had all been for nothing. He clenched his teeth and tried to ignore it, but he didn’t cover it up fast enough to escape Sam’s notice.

“You alright?” Sam asked, sandwich gone and concern replacing that friendly exterior.

With a short huff of laughter, Xander admitted, “No, Sam, I’m pretty fucking far from alright.”

“Dean’s told you about the demon, hasn’t he?” Sam asked softly, sympathy flooding his face. “Would it help to talk about it? You can ask me anything.”

Sam’s worry was so far off the mark, Xander could have laughed. But demons were a far easier topic than Xander’s immediate fears, so he was grateful for it.

“It’s just been a lot to think about,” he said quietly.

“We’re going to do everything we can to keep you safe. Not just Dean, but us, too,” Sam said earnestly.

Xander frowned. _Great_. He could just imagine how that was gonna go. Dean would want him to stay holed up on the hellmouth, off the radar, and John...Maybe John would want to use him as bait. Well, Xander thought cynically, he’d have to get that plan past Willow.

Sam cleared his throat, bringing Xander back to reality. “So, I know the whole ‘demons exist’ thing must be coming as a bit of a shock...” he began.

Xander would have replied, but the shouting in the next room pulled both of them away.

“I can’t believe that you would do that.” It was Dean, pacing the room and yelling at John with tightly-clenched fear in his voice. “I can’t _believe_ that you would think that I would want you to do that.”

“It wasn’t about what you wanted, Dean,” John replied, calm by comparison but still resolute. “I couldn’t watch you die.”

Dean’s gaze landed on Xander as he came into the living room, then slid past him to Sam. “Did you know about this? About what he was doing back at the hospital?”

Sam crossed his arms, looking a little smug. “No, I only found out after,” he said, shooting an I-told-you-so look in John’s direction.

Dean grimaced and looked away, and Xander, who’d been looking between them all and dispassionately trying to figure it out, asked, “Anyone care to fill me in?”

“Dad was going to sell his soul,” Dean spat. “He was going to trade it to the demon to bring me back.”

Xander raised his eyebrows, drawn in despite himself. “Jesus,” he said quietly. No wonder Dean was pissed off.

“Yeah,” Dean agreed, bitter and angry. "And he lost the last bullet from the colt trying to do it."

“Look,” John interjected, arms crossed defensively. “Maybe it wasn’t the best idea, but at the time I thought it was the only option,” he said firmly, in a tone that said he wouldn’t stand to be contradicted.

Dean ignored it. Disbelief was plastered across his face as he said, “The only option? Dad, the only option was to _let me die_.”

“No,” John ground out, standing to face Dean. “I am _not_ going to let that happen.”

Dean stilled, and something a lot like pity crossed his face. “Dad, Sam said there was a reaper after me in the hospital, which meant that it was my time to go. And if it’s my time, you’ve gotta let me.” His voice was full of angry sympathy, but that was suddenly replaced by a horrified look and he turned to Alex.

“Alex, what did she do? There was a reaper after me, so I was dead, but she... Alex, what the hell did she do?”

A shocked silence fell over the room, and Xander bristled a little under the sudden attention. “She healed you,” he said shortly. Then, with a sigh, he admitted to himself that it was probably a reasonable question. “You weren’t... It wasn’t dark magic, Dean.”

Dean laughed bitterly, a dark look in his eyes. “How could it be anything else? _I was dead_.”

“No,” Xander replied, certainty colouring his voice. “You weren’t. You weren’t gone yet, Dean. She didn’t have to bring you back from anywhere, I swear.”

“But I...”

“Trust me,” Xander interrupted bluntly. “I was there.”

Dean mulled over that for a second. John and Sam waited.

“What did it cost?” he asked finally, darkness in his voice. “You told me that for something big like that, there’s always a price.”

Xander grimaced, remembering how difficult that particular conversation with Dean had been. “It’s been paid,” he said quietly.

“By who?” Dean demanded, frowning.

“Me.”

Dean’s appalled expression registered with Xander, and he back-tracked quickly over what he’d just said. With a twist of frustration at himself, he ran a hand through his hair and said, “Jesus, Dean, _don’t_. It was half a pint of blood to get the spell going, alright?”

Dean still looked unconvinced, and Xander added seriously, “She wouldn’t have done it if it wasn’t right, Dean. _I_ wouldn’t have. You know that.”

His last words rang in the air for a second, and Xander prayed Sam and John would have the sense not to ask about it, about why Dean might know something like that about him. Dean seemed to consider Xander’s resentful reassurances for a second, then he nodded.

“Okay. Okay, sorry,” he said, deflating a bit.

Xander shrugged, relieved. The niggling worry that had been brought to life by Dean’s distress faded away, and he had to work hard for a moment to push his walls back up again. He couldn’t let the worry pave the way for any stronger emotions where Dean was concerned. _Dean was leaving_ , Xander reminded himself.

Meanwhile, Dean was looking carefully at John. He offered his father a strained nod, and John relaxed visibly. To cover, he turned to Xander and said, “I meant to ask about your friend. She must be powerful.”

“She is,” Xander replied neutrally, distance slightly regained. “But she’s a white hat. You don’t have to worry about her.”

“No, I didn’t mean...We’re grateful. I was just curious about exactly what she did to Dean.” John spoke hesitantly, like he wasn’t sure if he had the right to ask.

“It was a standard Egyptian regeneration spell. With a donation of blood, the right herbs, and skills like she’s got, it’s the best way to fix the kind of damage Dean had. And it’s a pretty neutral spell, unless the blood donor is unwilling. I was there when she cast, and it was fine. She was fine.”

He looked up to see Dean nodding reluctantly, and John watching him closely.

“So, you know something about the supernatural, then? This isn’t...this whole demon thing isn’t too much of a shock?” John’s face was torn between anxious and hopeful.

Xander stared at him for a long moment, frowning, then did a double take. “Wait, you don’t... Jesus, Dean, he thinks I’m a civilian?” He felt obliquely irritated, and tried to tell himself it wasn’t like it mattered.

Dean shrugged uncomfortably, obviously still a bit pissed off at John. “Didn’t get the chance to explain.”

“What? What is it?” John said, suspicious and frowning.

Alex offered him a bitter smile. _This was gonna be fun_ , he thought drily. “How much do you know about Sunnydale, John?”

John raised his eyebrows. “The hellmouth?”

Sam’s head swung round. “The _what_?”

Aware of Dean watching him closely, Xander kept his eyes on John and went on. “Yeah, the hellmouth. Home, sweet home.”

John was silent and staring, but Sam looked practically bug-eyed. “You _lived_ there?”

“I lived there,” Xander agreed, matter-of-fact. “And I’ve been fighting with the Slayer since I was sixteen. So no,” he added, glancing at John. “The demon thing isn’t exactly freaking me out.”

John had the wide-eyed look of a man processing almost too many things at once. Sam, however, held up a hand. “Okay, back up. Sunnydale was a hellmouth? What...how does that work? And what the hell is a slayer?”

Xander sighed. “Sunnydale is... _was_ ,” he corrected deliberately. “Just a town. It just happened to have a hellmouth, which is...exactly what it sounds like. A portal to hell. It’s a place where the barriers between this dimension and the next are weak, where it’s easier to break through.”

“Who the hell would want to break through?” Sam asked, after a horrified pause.

“Demons, mostly,” Xander shrugged. “Vampires. The occasional hell god.” He frowned, and muttered, “Although I’m not sure if she wanted to get through the hellmouth, exactly. She just wanted to rip down all the barriers between dimensions, so I guess that was different.” He wasn’t even going to bring up the First. Sam could find out about _that_ from someone else.

He looked up when Dean cleared his throat. Sam was gaping at him, and John looked frankly intrigued. “Anyway, Glory’s not really important,” Xander said hastily. “The hellmouth was underneath my high school, and Willow and me...” He paused, decided less was more, and mentally cut the story down to the bare essentials.

“We found out about the vampires, and we decided to help,” he said simply. “Our friend Buffy is the Slayer, the one girl in all the world with the strength and speed to fight the vampires. Destined. Chosen. We backed her up, patrolling and helping with research and all that stuff. And, you know, we were friends. Us, and Giles, of course. He’s Buffy’s Watcher.”

Xander knew it was the bare bones, the barest accounting of the last eight years of his life, and barely an explanation. But suddenly the last thing he wanted to do was talk about this, about himself. He didn’t want Sam, let alone John, asking questions, didn’t want them to be interested in him. He didn’t owe them any goddamn answers, and they’d be leaving soon anyway.

Taking Dean with them. Xander gritted his teeth.

He cleared his throat, and added neutrally, “Since Sunnydale fell, I’ve been travelling, mostly. Working. I’ve only been in Cleveland for about a week, and I’m—“ He stopped.

He was due in Scotland before Thanksgiving. Dean was leaving, so he didn’t need to know...did he?

Xander rubbed at the bridge of his nose with one hand, and thought about facing his friends after Dean left _yet again_. The thought of it made him feel physically sick. God. No, maybe he’d have to re-think Scotland altogether.

“What happened to the town?” Dean asked softly, breaking Xander out of his twisting thoughts. When Xander glanced over, he had a troubled, almost haunted look on his face.

Xander looked away, feeling the muscles in his throat tighten. He couldn't answer that now. “It fell,” he said.

Dean dropped his eyes, and Xander returned his attention to John and Sam. “Alright? Any more questions?” he asked, irritated with himself. His numb facade was crumbling, and he wanted them gone so badly. God, he wanted this over with.

Sam seemed oblivious. “Are you kidding? I have so many questions. I can’t believe no-one ever told me. You never thought to mention any of this?” he demanded of Dean.

“When was I supposed to mention it, Sam?” Dean countered. “In the beginning, I would have had to explain how I found out, and then you were off in your normal life anyway.” The tension was clearly getting to him, too.

Sam, startled, aimed a hurt look in Dean’s direction. But Xander’s attention was mostly on John.

John, who was staring at Xander with a really strange expression on his face. “What?” Xander said frostily.

“It’s nothing,” John replied hastily, and did he actually just duck his head, like he was embarrassed? “It’s just...You’re Xander Harris,” he added.

Xander frowned. “Yeah?”

“And Willow,” he said slowly. “Is Willow Rosenberg.” It wasn’t really a question.

Studying him carefully, Xander’s wariness increased as he wondered why John would know their last names, and more importantly why they would put that expression on his face. “And?”

John opened his mouth to say something, then just shook his head again.

“What?” Xander demanded tightly, sharper this time.

All eyes were riveted on John, who had a hesitant, embarrassed smile on his face.

“There isn’t a hunter alive who doesn’t listen out for news of the Slayer,” he finally admitted. “And you’re...well, I’ve heard stories.”

“Seriously?” Dean interjected, surprised, at the same time as Xander, equally surprised, said, “You’ve _heard_ of me?”

“ _I’ve_ never heard any stories,” Sam muttered angrily.

“Neither have I,” Dean said, eyes on John. “Only from Alex.”

Cracking under the scrutiny, John huffed out a breath. “Look, the hellmouth is major league stuff, alright? We punch our weight, but...” He trailed off, watching at Alex with that look in his eye again.

Xander was still trying to puzzle it out when John said softly, “Son, you saved the world.”

Startled, Xander blinked. That was _so_ not the reaction he’d been expecting. It completely distracted him from his well-earned hostility.

“Um...yeah?” Xander said awkwardly. He exchanged a baffled look with Dean, who shrugged, apparently confused by John’s hushed, almost reverent tone.

“You and your friends, you’ve been...” John stopped, and shook his head again. “God, it’s just...you are not who I expected you to be at _all_.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna have to ask you what you mean by that,” Xander said suspiciously. John actually looked pleased, and that was not a reaction Xander had ever imagined he’d inspire in the man.

And as John replied, Xander’s suspicions were justified.

“I thought you’d be... I didn’t think you’d understand. But you must. Of all people, you have to understand how important hunting this demon is.”

It was like a light had come on in John’s eyes. A fevered, slightly obsessed light.

Xander narrowed his eyes, and bared his teeth slightly. “Yes.” His voice was practically a hiss. “I _understand_.”

Oblivious to the anger in Xander’s voice, John went on fervently. “We’re going to need your help. The sooner we can start tracking the demon again, the better, and we need a new weapon. And you can help us find it.”

“You can’t ask him that,” Dean exclaimed, affronted.

“Dean, the trail is getting colder by the day,” John replied brusquely. “We need all the help we can get.”

Resentment was twisting in Xander’s stomach. Regardless of the fact that Willow and Giles had started on this days ago, this was John fucking Winchester asking him for help. Of all the fucking nerve...

“Yeah, and we’ve thrown Alex into the path of this thing,” Dean was saying. “He’s already nearly died because of me, because of _us_. You can’t ask him for help, for fuck’s sake.” At least he seemed to share Xander’s disbelief.

Dismissing his son, John turned his scrutiny on Xander. “Well? Will you help?”

Weighing his options, Xander glared back at him. So far, punching John’s determined, demanding face seemed like an awesome idea.

Before he could, though, the shrill sound of the phone cut through the tense silence.

Xander very deliberately held John’s gaze a moment longer, feeling unforgiving. Then he stood, and crossed the room, calmly lifting the phone from its cradle on the wall by the kitchen.

“Harris,” he answered, resolutely turning his back on the rest of the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from a song by Creedence Clearwater Revival


	9. Rusty Cage

As soon as Alex turned his back, Dean rounded on John. “Jesus Christ, Dad, I can’t believe you,” he hissed, trying to keep his voice low. He’d been quietly trying not to freak out about the fact that the goddamn Colt was useless now, trying not to think about what that could mean for protecting Alex, and John just flat-out asked him to go find a _goddamn replacement_?

“What?” John replied, nonplussed.

“Oh, where the hell do I start? Maybe with the fact that you’re actually asking for a _favour_? From _Alex_?” Dean was outraged, and couldn’t believe how oblivious John was. He knew he’d made progress with Alex that morning, felt like they were on the way to mending some of the bridges he’d so stupidly burnt. But he was still trying not to push too hard, cause it’d still be pretty damn easy to fuck it all up and lose Alex forever. Dean also hadn’t forgotten the empty, desolate, broken look in Alex’s eyes, and the last thing anyone needed was John just fucking _demanding a favour_...

“It’s hardly a favour,” John countered, as Dean’s thoughts ranted themselves into incoherence. “We need a weapon, and his people can probably help us find one. It’s coming after him, too, now.”

“Yeah, because of me,” Dean pointed out. “So not only has he spent the past year thinking I didn’t give a shit about him, I’ve just brought a demon down on his head.”

“But he’s Alexander Harris,” John hissed. “He won’t care about that, he does this kind of thing all the time.”

Dean stared at him for a second. “I don’t know what you’ve heard about him? But you don’t know him. You _don’t_ ,” he stressed, wanting it to sink in. “And you _cannot_ push him right now.”

“Dean, I really think—“ John began mulishly, but Dean cut him off.

“For Christ’s sake, Dad, _you_ were the reason I never stayed with him longer than a weekend, okay? I left him over and over again, and kept him a secret, because of _you_ ,” he snapped, hating the accusation in his voice but bitter with the need to make John understand.

John stared at him in surprise, and Dean took a deep breath and checked himself, trying to stay under control. Surprisingly, Alex hadn’t looked over, and didn’t seem to be paying them any attention.

“Right now, he is _tolerating_ you,” he added roughly. “But if you get in his face again, he’ll throw all of us out, and then I’ll never see him again. Do you understand that?”

John hesitated, glancing between Dean and Alex and apparently unwilling to believe it. God, how could John not see how fraught all of this was? How easily it could all fall apart into yelling and accusations and probably violence?

“Please?” Dean added desperately, a last ditch attempt to get John to see that there was more riding on this than another crack at the demon.

“Of course,” John said reflexively, like that had been his answer all along. He gave Dean a long look. “I’m not trying to make this harder,” he said finally, a hint of apology in his voice.

Dean nodded, relieved, and let all the air go out of him in a rush. He could barely believe it’d worked – he couldn’t remember another time John had caved so quickly, especially when it came to the demon. Another look at the old man’s face, and John looked so concerned and awkward, Dean felt he had to add, “I will talk to him about it, just not now. I want some time to...” He trailed off, turning his attention back to Alex. “I just don’t want to push.”

John followed his gaze, and if Dean had looked he might have seen sympathy in his father’s eyes. “It’s okay, Dean. I’m sorry.”

Dean didn’t reply. He’d been watching Alex, watching him get more and more irritated with whoever was on the other end.

“I know that,” he said impatiently, and waited a second, listening. “Yeah, well, that’s what you said yesterday.”

Another pause, then an angry, “Oh, for fuck’s sake, I said yes already.” Alex slammed the phone down, and Dean tensed.

Alex was angry. He’d been distant and withdrawn since John and Sam turned up, but now there was a crack or two in his calm-ish surface, and Dean was startled to realise there was anger boiling beneath like acid.

But what about? Of all the fucked-up things that’d happened, which one was the problem now?

“Look, I’ll see what I can do about the weapon. I’ll give Giles a call or something,” Alex said brusquely, grimacing and running a hand through his hair. The irritation quickly disappeared beneath a layer of controlled non-expression, but Dean could see the tension in Alex’s shoulders now that he was looking for it. He couldn’t tell whether Alex was pissed at him, or John, or whoever had been on the phone.

“Forget about it. You don’t have to do anything,” he said to Xander as he headed across the room without even a glance in Dean’s direction.

“Whatever,” Alex muttered, and disappeared down the hall.

“Is he alright?” Sam asked, bewildered.

“Probably not,” Dean muttered back, clenching his jaw. God, this was screwed up. After how close they’d been earlier, physically and otherwise, it suddenly felt like Alex was further away from him than he’d ever been. Like it was all teetering on a knife’s edge, still. And Dean didn’t know how if he could fix it.

Before he could follow that thought any further, Alex reappeared, pulling on a dark sweater over an undershirt. “So,” he said brightly. “I have to go out now.” The false cheer did nothing to mask his irritation and anger.

“Give me a minute, I’ll go with you,” Dean offered seriously.

“Nah, don’t worry about it,” Alex replied casually. “There are zombies in one of the cemeteries, and there’s no way you should be fighting.”

Dean frowned, just as Sam exclaimed, “Zombies? Really?”

“Yep,” Alex said, heading for the closet across the room, by the front door. “Third night this week. Some asshat’s managed to curse one of the biggest cemeteries in town. We’re keeping them contained, but since the hellmouth’s so close, there’s always a chance the place’ll get all Dawn of the Dead, and then it’s all brains and shotguns and shopping malls and badness. No fun for anyone.”

It was very Xander-like patter, said as he pulled out a pair of boots and sat on a dining chair to pull them on.

“Wait, the hellmouth is here? I thought it was in Sunnydale,” Sam said, confused.

“It was. Turns out there’s more than one,” Alex replied, matter-of-fact. “You know what it’s like, you come to town for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and end up dealing with the nightlife,” he said with a humourless grin. Boots done, he stood and headed back to the closet.

“Yeah,” Dean agreed with a fake smile, and added, “Look, I’m gonna go with you, okay? I feel fine, and I don’t want you going out alone. If the demon comes—“

Alex cut him off with an impatient wave. “If the demon comes, it comes, and I’ll deal with it.”

“What the hell do you mean, ‘you’ll deal with it’?” John jumped in. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

And Dean should have expected that reaction to Xander’s off-handedness. Heart in his throat, he jumped in before John could go further. “Dad, he doesn’t mean...”

But the damage had been done. Alex had turned to glare, one hand frozen where he’d been reaching to pull something down off a shelf. “Excuse me?” he said icily.

“You really think we’re gonna let you go out there alone, without back-up?” John added, completely ignoring Dean’s panic.

“I’m not going _alone_ ,” Alex replied, disbelieving. “This is the hellmouth, for Christ’s sake. I’m not stupid.”

“We know you’re not,” Dean denied hastily, before John could say anything. The impatient tone in Alex’s voice was a warning, and Dean knew John’d been about to cross the same line Dean had already crossed. He knew Alex could take care of himself, and if he could hold back the panic, John could damn well do the same. “I just... I thought you said Buffy and Willow were out of town,” he added, hoping to smooth things out a little.

“They are. But there’s a team stationed here, and I’ll be fighting with them.”

And the thought of Alex backed up by some random team Dean had never even _heard_ of made something clench in his belly. Abruptly, he wanted to lock Alex up in a room lined with salt and devil’s traps. But he gritted his teeth, and simply asked, “Are you sure you’ll be alright?”

“Yes,” Alex emphasised, and the warning in his voice was even stronger this time. “We’ve already had this argument,” he muttered.

Dean shut his mouth with a snap, then nodded helplessly. He _hated_ the thought of Alex out there without him, but if the only alternative was pissing Alex off enough to throw him out, maybe for good...

John, however, had been looking between them like he was watching a tennis match. _He_ hadn’t already had this argument. He frowned, and said firmly, “I agree with Dean. He should be resting, you’re right about that, but you shouldn’t go out alone. Sam and I will go with you.”

Alex tensed, and Dean winced. John’s statement had sounded way too much like an order, which wasn’t going to go over well at all.

“No, really, it’s okay,” Alex replied tightly. He glanced up briefly to offer John a tight, dismissive half-smile, then reached down to pick a bundled-up belt up off the floor by the kitchen. Dean watched as he buckled it on, distracted by the long sheaths and the implication that it took very big blades to take care of zombies. “We can handle it.”

“Right, you and your team,” John said, suspicion clear in his voice. “Will these people be able to deal with the demon if it comes?”

“They’ve been briefed,” Alex said flatly, defensive without looking like he cared that much what John thought about it. He headed for the kitchen, apparently deciding the argument was over.

“And that’s fine,” Dean interjected, glaring at John. “If Alex says they can handle it, they can handle it,” he added. He gave John a look, trying to tell him yet again to back off. His father gave him a disbelieving one back.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” John hissed. “We _cannot_ risk this. If that thing comes after him—"

“I know, alright? But he says it’s okay.” Dean was clinging stubbornly to the earlier reassurances Alex had given him, hoping his trust wasn’t misplaced.

“I don’t care what he says,” John replied. “We need to go with him.”

“No, you really don’t,” Alex said decisively from the doorway to the kitchen. He was drying a machete with a hand towel, and as they watched he slid it into its sheath on his belt.

When Alex met Dean’s eyes, his expression was cold and distant, with a fragment or two of real hostility. It was like looking at a stranger. Dean’s heart sank.

“It’s not going to find me here,” Alex added dismissively, and turned to go back into the kitchen for his axe. His voice was final, with no more room for argument.

It felt like he’d put up a brick wall between them, and Dean was on the outside, completely shut out.

***

John glared at Alex’s retreating back, wishing he could just mentally force the kid to do what he was told. Hellmouth or not, this so-called team had no idea what it was dealing with. Whoever they were, they wouldn’t be enough to keep him safe if the demon came calling, and Alex could stonewall all he liked but it didn’t change facts.

He watched Dean try to work out what to say, watched him hesitate. Watched his face fall when the kid shut him out. And hell, John knew Alex was pissed at him. At all of them. He had a couple of damn good reasons for it, too. But he’d just have to suck it up. Going out alone was simply too risky. John was going to protect him, like it or not, so they were going with him.

As Alex crossed the room towards the door, John said quickly, “Look, we know what to expect from this thing.” He went on more calmly, trying for patience and hoping to reason with the kid. “We’ve dealt with it before, and I’m guessing the people you’ll be with haven’t. We can protect you, and I just think—"

“Protect me?” Alex interrupted, turning around with a frustrated noise and a disbelieving look on his face. The axe head hit the floor by the door and Alex took a step or two forward. “How, exactly?” he demanded.

“Alex,” Dean tried to interrupt again, trying to intervene while John gritted his teeth and tried to think of another way to argue without putting the kid offside. More offside.

“No. Forget it,” Alex snapped. Then he turned hurt, angry eyes back to John. “You don’t have a weapon anymore. If the demon comes, you can do exactly _nothing_ to stop it. The team can deal with it.”

That _did_ make John see red. The accusation that he was useless, and the throwaway promise that the demon – the thing he’d spent his entire life hunting – would be so easily taken out by some _team_?

“The demon is our problem,” he said angrily. “And we intend to protect you. If there is even a chance it could come after you, we need to be there.”

“No. I don’t need your protection,” Alex replied through clenched teeth. “And I refuse to be responsible for your safety out on the hellmouth.”

“Responsible for our safety?” John said, affronted. “We can take care of ourselves. For God’s sake, we’re trying to help you.”

Alex seemed immune. “I don’t need your help,” he repeated, voice like iron.

“Dad,” Dean tried again.

“You don’t know that,” John said, ignoring Dean. “We’re going with you, and that’s final.”

“There is no way in hell that’s going to happen.”

“Why not?” John demanded harshly. He knew he was pressing, _pushing_ , but for the love of God, why couldn’t this kid see reason?

“Because I don’t take orders from you,” Alex shouted, face twisted with fury.

“I’m not trying to give you orders,” John denied, at almost the same volume. “I’m trying to keep you safe, and stop you from going out there without us just because we’re pissing you off,” he ground out. God, this kid was stubborn.

Alex denied it, eyes flashing. “It has nothing to do with you. If none of you were here? This is exactly what I’d be doing.”

“Fine,” John conceded, abandoning that particular theory without losing any momentum. “All I’m asking is to tag along.”

“And I’m still saying no.”

“You’re going to have to give me a better reason than ‘I don’t want you there.’”

“He doesn’t have to explain it to you,” Dean interjected.

But Alex ignored Dean as well. “Because I don’t know you,” he snapped. “I’ve never fought with you before. You’ve never fought on a hellmouth before. I don’t care how well you can protect yourself, I have no idea if you can handle what we’re going into, and that’d make me responsible for you out there. And this is not the time or place to break in a new fighter,” he finished, voice like a whip.

“Also?” he added through clenched teeth. “I don’t want you there.”

John opened his mouth, but Dean said tightly, “Dad, if you say one more word, I swear...”

He left the threat unspoken, but when John turned a slightly betrayed look in Dean’s direction, he realised his son looked seconds away from a breakdown, his gaze ricocheting frantically between John and Alex.

Their eyes met for a moment, and John tried not to be moved by the pleading look on Dean’s face.

“Alex knows the territory,” Dean went on. “And we’re gonna follow his lead on this one.”

***

Dean kept one eye on his resentful father, who glowered at Dean but turned away, apparently giving in again. Sam had been watching the argument with wide eyes, and he frowned at Dean’s verdict but didn’t comment.

Xander just turned to the closet, and pulled out a jacket.

“This isn’t a good idea,” John muttered.

Dean ignored him. Alex was checking his pockets for hat and gloves, and when he glanced Dean’s way, Dean said, “I’ll see you when you get back, okay?”

It was supposed to be supportive, supposed to smooth over Dean’s over-protectiveness. Supposed to nail home the fact that even though Dean had been making the same argument as John, he was on Alex’s side anyway, and he trusted him to know what he was doing.

But Alex flinched.

He hid it quickly, offering Dean that fake smile with dead eyes above it.

Shocked, Dean watched him open the door, trying to work out what he’d said wrong, what could put that look on Alex’s face. He wanted to say something else but he couldn’t find the words.

Then Sam spoke up again. “Are you sure you you’ll be okay?” His tone was concerned, more worried than challenging.

It still made Alex freeze, gripping the handle of his axe. And Dean froze with him, mentally raining down fire on his idiot brother’s head.

But Alex didn’t even look over. “I’ll be fine. Thanks.” His voice was tight, and it carried more of that finality that made Dean feel like everything was slipping away from him, like he’d just been thrown off a cliff.

Like Alex wasn’t gonna come back.

Dean stood for a second, still frozen. But the door was still closing behind Alex when he crossed the room and wrenched it open again. “Wait!” he yelled.

Xander paused, and turned slowly, allowing Dean to catch up to him.

“What’s...What’s going on?” he asked, uncertainly. Something was wrong. Deeply wrong, wronger than he’d thought, and he’d been going to leave it alone, let it wait, but suddenly he didn’t think he could bear to.

“What are you talking about?” Alex said, his face unreadable again.

“I just...” Dean trailed off, staring uncertainly at Alex but unable to work out what he wanted to ask.

“What is it, Dean? I’ve got zombies to get to, remember?” he prompted impatiently. “They won’t kill themselves. Well, aside from the part where they’re already dead,” he amended.

“I... Why are you so angry with me?” Dean managed.

“Excuse me?”

And yeah, Dean probably deserved the astounded look that accompanied that statement. But he had to ask. “I know the overprotective thing pisses you off, but...is this about Dad? Or before? Or something else?”

He knew it was a little ridiculous that he was even asking, because he’d fucked up so badly and everything was so messed up that it could be anything, or everything. Alex probably had no idea where to start. But Dean had to know where they stood, had to know what was wrong right now, so he knew what to try to fix.

 _What do you want me to say? Tell me, and I’ll say it_ , he thought desperately.

Alex spent a few minutes gripping the handle of the axe, apparently trying to keep himself under control. When he spoke, his was rough with the effort of it.

“Look, you should just go, alright?”

Dean shook his head. “No, I’m not going back inside until you tell me—"

“Not back inside,” Alex interrupted coldly. “I mean...go. You should go.” He wouldn’t meet Dean’s eyes.

Dean felt the world collapse around him. He couldn’t breathe. He felt like he’d been hit by a truck.

“What? Alex, it’s not...it’s not over,” Dean said numbly. “I know Dad’s being an asshole but he’s just trying to...”

“It’s not him,” Alex said. He finally looked up, and Dean could see he was barely holding onto his control, that his jaw was gritted tight and his eyes were liquid with unshed tears. “You’re going to leave anyway. I just want you to get it over with.”

Alex’s words stopped Dean’s impending grief in its tracks. “ _I’m_ going to leave?” he repeated, shocked.

Because that...that sounded more like Alex didn’t think he was staying, not that he wanted him to go. Or was Dean just clutching at straws?

“Look, I get it. I _understand_ ,” Xander was saying through clenched teeth. “He’s back, he doesn’t care, I’m really fucking _happy_ for you,” he ground out, voice breaking. “But I wish—” He checked himself and gritted his teeth for a moment, frustrated. “Just go. Don’t drag this out.”

“Drag _what_ out? What the hell are you talking about?” Anger was intruding, blocking out the hurt panic fluttering in Dean’s periphery, and he embraced it.

“I’m talking about the fact that you’re going to leave with them to go hunt the demon,” Xander replied, fury in his voice as the last of his calm cracked and fell away. “I knew what would happen as soon as John said he was proud of you, as soon as you realised you could go back to them. God, Dean, I just can’t _deal_ with this anymore.”

Dean was stunned by the ragged pain in Xander’s voice. This, not anger, was what had been beneath the calm, blank expression, behind the wall he’d thrown between them.

“Alex, I’m not leaving you,” he said seriously, pulling back his disbelief in favour of getting the message across.

“Don’t,” Alex ordered harshly. “I know you, Dean. I know you can’t let them go without you.”

Dean bridled under the assumption. “ _I’m not leaving_. I told you, I _promised_ you.”

Alex looked at him like he was nuts. “So? You told me that when you thought they hated you, Dean,” he said impatiently. “You can’t tell me nothing’s changed since then.”

“Yes I can,” Dean replied stubbornly.

“Look, Dean, its fine. They’re your family,” Alex said, and the hoarse resignation in his voice brought Dean’s anger back to the fore.

“No, it’s not _fine_ ,” Dean shouted, barely keeping himself from punching the wall. “I _promised_ you,” he repeated. “Don’t you think that means anything?”

The look on Xander’s face told him everything. Dean’s promises didn’t mean shit.

With a frustrated noise, Dean turned away for a second, running his hands through his hair. But he turned back again, stepping closer to Alex and looking him straight in the eye. “I’m. Not. Leaving,” he ground out, letting an edge of threat slip into his voice.

Maybe Alex didn’t believe him when he promised. But he could damn well take a threat seriously.

Xander gritted his teeth, and suddenly there was something hard and challenging underneath the sadness. “What? You’ll just stay here while they go after this thing without you?”

“That’s the idea,” Dean replied stubbornly, meeting Xander’s gaze without flinching.

But Xander went on, searching Dean’s face as he said, “And how exactly do you see that playing out? They’re gonna drive off into the big scary world, and you’ll be trapped here on the hellmouth. You know John won’t stay here, not when he could be on the move.”

And Dean knew that. He didn’t have to like it, but it was true. He clenched his jaw. “We’ve been without Dad for a year now,” he began, but Alex cut him off.

“You think Sam will stay with you?” Dean recoiled. He stared at Alex, hurt.

“Can you honestly tell me you’ll be happy with them out there without you?” Alex went on persuasively. “Not knowing if they’re alright, not knowing if you’ll even hear if something happens to them? Not knowing if they need your help?”

“What are you trying to say? That it’s going to be difficult? I know that,” Dean replied angrily. Unfair fucking tactics, using Sam against him like that.

“I’m asking you whether you’ve thought this through, Dean. What’s gonna happen if one of them gets hurt? Or if one of them _dies_ , and you’re not _there_.” He punctuated the words with push to Dean’s chest, and Dean flinched hard, hating Alex for knowing exactly which buttons to push.

And he wanted to deny it, wanted to promise that it wasn’t a problem. But he’d never be able to do that.

“It doesn’t have to be like that,” he ground out, but it sounded weak to his own ears.

Alex didn’t answer, but took one last look at Dean then turned and walked away.

 _No_ , something inside him screamed, and Dean lunged after him. “No,” he said aloud. “ _Wait_.”

Alex whirled around, and Dean’s heart thudded at the distress on his face. “ _Why_?” he pleaded. “Dean, I can’t do this anymore. I just _can’t_.” The words sounded ripped from him.

“Alex,” Dean whispered, unable to accept this. This couldn’t be it, it couldn’t be over.

Xander looked back at him tearfully. “You can’t choose me over your family. I can’t _ask_ you to. I can’t do the casual weekend shit anymore because I just don’t have the strength to say goodbye again and again,” he said hoarsely. “And right now I cannot spend another _second_ just waiting for you to leave.”

Dean just stared, horrified.

“We’re out of options, Dean,” Alex finished, and pulled his arm out of Dean’s grasp and walked away down the hallway.

Dean watched him go, the brief warmth from where they’d been in contact fading from his hands.

***

Sam heard everything. Dean had left the door ajar when he chased Alex out into the hallway, and their raised voices carried into Alex’s apartment like the walls were made of cardboard.

So that was the problem, he thought dully, aching as Dean’s hurt voice came through the wall. Sam had been watching them all argue with the distinct impression that there was more going on underneath, that there was some other issue no-one was really talking about.

When Alex refused to ask Dean to choose, it all made a lot more sense.

If Dean had always chosen their fucked-up family in the past, no wonder Alex didn’t want to wait around and see it happen again. No wonder he didn’t trust any of them.

Sam was still a little surprised, though. He knew Dean felt he’d made mistakes, had a lot of regrets and felt he had a lot to make up for. But Sam had wondered whether his paranoia was a little over the top, and his fear of pushing Alex too hard was _overly_ cautious.

But apparently it wasn't. Seeing the damage first hand, though, seeing Alex actively refuse to believe Dean would stay with him...Dean hadn’t exaggerated. Alex really believed that Dean would never choose him.

Sam shot a glance in John’s direction, curious about his father’s reaction. He looked away quickly. John had one hand over his eyes, arms crossed like he was trying to hold himself in, and Sam could tell his jaw was clenched tight. He looked like he might be the heartbroken one.

There had to be hope, though. Alex had sounded like he’d just ripped his own heart out, like telling Dean to leave had just about killed him. If the hurt was on both sides, and if Dean was careful enough – which Sam knew he’d been trying to be – surely they could fix this?

Silence in the corridor, and Sam had to do something. He crossed to the door, listening carefully to make sure Alex was gone. Bracing himself, he stepped out.

Dean was staring down the hallway, a look on his face like he couldn’t believe what had just happened. Hurting for his brother, Sam reached out for Dean’s arm. “Come on. Come back inside.”

Dean let Sam pull him away unresisting. He had a lost, heartbroken look that Sam recognised from the days just after the news about Sunnydale.

Once they were inside, Sam guided Dean to the sofa and sat him down. John watched awkwardly from across the room but Sam ignored him. He crouched in front of Dean and tried to get him to meet his eyes, tried to get the thousand-yard stare to focus.

“Hey,” he said, covering Dean’s cold hand with his own. “It’s going to be okay, Dean. We’ll work something out.”

Dean’s gaze flickered, and something in his expression twisted with bitterness. “Right,” he said. “Of course. You two were listening.”

“You left the door open,” Sam replied evenly, buying time to come up with something to say.

Dean just took a deep breath, and closed his eyes, raising his free hand over them, a gesture that uncannily mimicked their father’s. Sam studied him, watching, waiting for a sign or a reaction, waiting for anything that might give him a clue how to help.

But when Dean dropped his hand again, to Sam’s surprise there was already steel in his open eyes. Determination. Realising Sam’s hand was holding his, Dean shook it off with a grimace. “Dude, get off me,” he said, and stood, brushing past Sam as he stepped away from the sofa. “Your chick-flick tendencies are out of control.”

“Dean—“ John began.

“No,” Dean said coldly, fixing John with a glare. “Let me tell you how this is going to go. We,” he said, gesturing to indicate the three of them. “Are not going anywhere. I’m not going to leave him, and you two are damn well going to stay here with me until we work out what happens next.”

“Dean,” John repeated, shock infusing his voice.

“Don’t,” Dean said harshly, cutting him off. “One day. That’s all I’m asking for. A single goddamn day to try and come up with something that will work. The demon can wait, because I just need...I just need some time to think.” His voice had become a plea, ragged with the stress he was under. Sam was ready to agree to anything that might possibly help.

“Okay,” John said suddenly, apparently suffering the same impulse. “It’s okay, Dean. Of course we’ll stay.”

Dean watched him warily for another moment, unrelenting. Then he nodded and looked away. John watched, as if waiting for some other reaction but Dean just went to stare out the window.

John briefly looked frustrated, but Sam gave him a pointed look and he nodded shortly, a resigned expression on his face. “You think Alex would mind if I made some coffee?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from a song by Soundgarden.


	10. Love Is Not Enough

On the walk to the cemetery, Xander felt numb. The seething mess of emotion was there, somewhere down inside him, but the rawness of it wasn’t really hitting home. He embraced the muted sensation, glad for what he suspected would be a short-lived break.

He’d felt more in the past day than he had in a year. It was like Dean had woken him out of a deep sleep, or melted the ice around him or something. And his hibernation had apparently lost him the ability to deal with the overload, because even with the numbness, he felt like he was drowning.

Jesus, he didn’t want this. He didn’t want to feel like this, like he’d woken up on a rollercoaster, and had no memory of getting on. It was different than it had been last night, when he’d last been in the cemetery. That uncertainty had been a fucking picnic compared to this.

Everything he’d thought he knew had been twisted around. He kept seeing Dean’s face in his mind, repeating over and over that he was sorry, that he loved him, that he wasn’t leaving. He kept saying everything Xander had ever wanted him to say, and he was so goddamn convincing, so sincere.

But it wasn’t true. He should have known it from the beginning, should have known it wouldn’t last. And sure enough, with John came the _inevitability_ that no matter what Dean had said, he was gonna leave. He’d leave, and Xander couldn’t afford to wait for it. Couldn’t afford to get comfortable again, couldn’t afford the risk.

No matter how much he wanted to. And God, he wanted to. The gap between what he wanted and what was actually happening was so wide, it was giving him _vertigo_.

Xander reached the cemetery, pausing for a moment to breathe, or try to. Dean was _leaving_ , and it felt like there was a fist in Xander’s throat, clamped down on his windpipe.

He forced a final, ragged exhalation, and trudged on. His boots crunched on snow as he walked deeper into the cemetery, feeling dizzy with grief.

As he walked between the headstones, towards the group of slayers near the centre, a twisted kind of satisfaction rose in him. At least he was denying John a prime opportunity to wave him around in the open and use him as bait. He didn’t know what the hell the man thought he could do that a passel of slayers couldn’t. His magical gun was broken. What a jerk.

And John was the reason Dean was...

Xander killed the thought before it could go further, concentrating instead on the heft of the axe in his hand, the fight that was about to come. _Don’t think about it_ , he ordered himself, willing the numbness to happen. Opening his eyes again, he looked around, determined to shake himself out of his thoughts before they could tear him apart completely.

He’d reached the group, which was scattered through the headstones at the centre of the cemetery. Just as he arrived, Faith and Robin started marshalling the slayers, outlining the evening’s plan of attack. It was much the same as the previous evening, except they were down two girls who’d been sent to keep an eye on Clara and the other wiccas, who were apparently close to nailing the asshat.

As he stood there trying not to think, the girls started spreading out and Faith strolled over. “Looks like you’re with me, X.”

He managed to rouse himself enough to nod. “Fine,” he said, voice scratchy. Wood had been a bitch on the phone, so at least Xander wasn’t paired with him.

Faith looked at him curiously, and he gritted his teeth.

“You didn’t sleep, did you?” she said knowingly, offering him a slightly irritated frown.

“I did, actually,” Xander replied. He had slept; he’d slept amazingly well. It was everything that’d happened since he’d woken up that’d been the problem.

Faith eyed him sharply. After a second, she said, “Yeah, I guess I can see how that might not work out for you.”

Xander gritted his teeth again. Yeah, he’d really needed that reminder of his usual nightmares. But he didn’t correct her. There was no way in hell he’d tell her what was really going on. He had enough to deal with, with Dean standing there in his goddamn apartment, leaving _again_...

He felt sick as he ruthlessly pushed the hurt away again. He knew Faith was watching him, taking in the clench of his jaw, the way his hands shook.

“I’m fine, Faith,” he managed, clearing his throat. “I’ll be fine.”

She nodded warily, and looked over at the others. As if responding to some unseen signal, she suddenly said tersely, “We’re on.”

Xander sighed. “Awesome.”

With a dark, desperate ache inside him, he followed her into battle.

***

Faith kept one eye on Harris as they penned the zombies in once more. She didn’t like the tension in his shoulders, or the grim line of his mouth. He looked like he’d had another bad night. Or bad day, technically, but whatever.

Bad sleep, anyway. They’d worked together a few times, on and off, since Sunnydale, and she’d started to pick up the signs, when whatever mind job the First had laid on him really took its toll. And she kept an eye on him, on those days. Nights. Whatever.

It was almost like a job, part of her duty, but she didn’t resent it. The First had fucked with her too, but she knew she’d been lucky. Compared to Harris, it’d barely touched her, barely made the effort, and that’d been more than enough. Harris, on the other hand, had been in it up to his neck. She didn’t need to know what it’d really done to him to know he woke screaming sometimes.

And the next day – night, whatever – it showed. He’d be quiet, tense, tight around the mouth. Eyes more shadowed than usual.

A little more unpredictable when it came to fighting.

That last little quirk had almost gotten too serious, back in Morroco. Harris was a great fighter, for a human, and even if he couldn’t match a slayer he could hold his own against plenty of things. But she had no idea what made him think he could go in alone against five Carthaginian Renda demons.

She’d chewed him out about it, and he’d made the right apologetic noises. But sometimes she wondered if she should have told someone, Giles maybe, about the look she’d caught on Xander’s eyes, a look she didn’t think she was supposed to have seen. An indifferent, empty look, like he didn’t care that he’d almost been killed.

But she kept her mouth shut, and settled for watching out for him when they fought. And tonight, Faith kept him in her peripheral vision as she ducked and slashed her way through the rotting, groaning corpses trying to fight their way out of the graveyard.

Claws crusted with filth raked through the air about an inch away from her ear. Faith grabbed at the thing, tripping it over a tombstone and hacking its body in half. When she turned back to the line of creatures shuffling determinedly out from the centre crypt, she drove her sword through a torso only to receive a gust of foul breath on her face. As she gagged, another one came up on her left side, she blocked, and followed up with a kick.

The whole situation was beyond gross. She took down another, and another, then looked around, confused. All over the cemetery, zombies were grappling with slayers and fighters, trying to get out. The team’d ringed them, penning the disgusting little bastards in, and so far everyone was holding the line.

But her area was kind of clear.

And as soon as she looked in Xander’s direction, she realised why. They were all going for him.

He’d gone too far, gone in past the line, and let them get in behind him. They’d circled him, and they were closing in. Part of her was surprised they had the intelligence; the rest of her spiked with adrenalin.

He was going to get himself killed.

“Cara! Lettie!” she shouted. “Spread through, cover the line.” Without looking back to see if they’d obeyed, she dove in, cursing Harris’ goddamn death wish.

***

Xander hacked and sliced, a machete in either hand and a hot feeling in his chest. He’d lost his axe somewhere, stuck in a skull, but the machetes were doing nicely. He beheaded one, smashed another across the face with his handle-braced fist, and thrust up to slice through another torso.

They were falling.

He lunged at the one on his left, but as he reached something scraped across his back. It didn’t break skin – didn’t even break the fabric on his coat – but it’d been close enough to try, and that was enough to piss him off. He lashed out behind him, but there was another and another. They’d surrounded him, and now they were dodging and slashing ineffectually, trying to get close enough for blood and bone.

Adrenalin surged through him, and he forced his body to work harder and harder. It felt almost natural; twist, punch, stab. Don’t think, just fight. Zombies were all that existed, and he was all about killing them, chopping them up into tiny pieces. All he could do was fight; attack, react. The action was cathartic; he had no time to think, no time to hurt. No time to brood, or worry, or remember that Dean was leaving him again.

The thought had barely crossed his mind before he was burying it, pushing it away. But the zen he’d built cracked, and with it the emotional blankness he’d managed to summon. Xander abruptly lost his rhythm, lost his edge.

He faltered, and in that second, claws raked across his momentarily-unprotected stomach.

It sent a flash of pain through him. Then something breathed fetid air on the back of his neck, and for a second he could hear Mary whispering in his ear.

 _You've lost him, Xander._

 _It doesn't have to be like this._

 _You can make the pain stop._

 _Dean doesn’t love you, Alex._

The words thundered in his mind, blocking out everything else and burying Xander under an onslaught of sense memory, of blood and fear and running. He was back in his apartment in Sunnydale, facing the First, pinned down with Spike tearing at his arm, Mary’s voice echoing through his head.

He suddenly remembered what it felt like to believe her. What it felt like to want to die, because it was the only way to make everything stop hurting.

More than remembered. He felt it again.

 _No_ , he thought, as if the denial could make the want not have happened. Xander shuddered, both deeply shocked and utterly familiar with the strength of his desire.

Then there were clawed hands at his throat, and more slashing at his back, snagging on his coat. _No_ , he wanted to scream, for more than one reason.

With effort, he shoved the panic away, and raised arms that felt wooden, stiff and weighted down, slicing at the zombie in front of him. The feeling still coiled sickeningly in his stomach, and he shoved it away as well, hating that it was there to begin with. With the strength of that hate, he attacked the zombies around him with renewed anger.

They were everywhere. Behind him, still, and on all sides. He was surrounded, and when he started to fight again, it was almost ineffectual. For every creature he felled, another took its place.

He struck out with both machetes to breach their circle and get clear, but they flowed in behind him, grasping at his clothes and hair, gripping his limbs as he struggled. He was trapped, surrounded by moaning bodies with sharp claws and clammy limbs.

Through it all, he could still hear her voice, asking him why he struggled, asking him what the point was, when he was so tired. Telling him he didn’t have to struggle, that he didn’t _want_ to struggle.

 _No_ , his mind repeated desperately, but for another horrifying second, he wasn’t sure if he was arguing with her or agreeing.

Then a hand reached into the swarm and grabbed at his lapels, gripping his front to pull him clear. Faith. She pulled him bodily through the mess of zombies, and when she released him, he staggered, bruised and shaking and a little shocked by the open space around him.

And he didn’t know whether to cry or thank her. There was a pain in his chest, and he felt unstable, likely to break open. The stagger turned into a fall, and on his hands and knees he puked his twisting guts out into the snow.

“Harris? You alright?” Faith demanded from somewhere behind him. His vision was fuzzy, and he hoped she was holding back the zombies because the shaking was so bad, Xander couldn’t do much more than kneel there and breathe.

“Harris!” she barked. Peripherally, Xander could see her fighting twice as hard as she should need to, holding off a hoarde to clear a space around him.

And as much as he would have liked to curl up in a ball on the ground and shake himself to pieces, Xander spat the foul taste out of his mouth, got to his feet, turned back to the fight, and grimly raised his machetes again.

They fought back to back for a while, and Faith seemed relieved he was back in the game. But Xander’s muscles were burning, the scratches on his belly stung, and he could feel the way every punch he threw jarred his arm all the way up to his shoulders. He couldn’t get that zen back, and horror was still wild in the edges of his eyes.

But he kept fighting. If he stopped, he was afraid it’d overwhelm him again.

He was controlling himself through sheer force of will, bargaining with his own brain, negotiating against the memories and scary-as-fuck feelings to get just enough room in his mind to finish the fight. _Later_ , he promised himself, as the urge to panic or just fall apart strained at him. _Later_ , he promised his torn up heart.

Suddenly, the zombies froze. Light gleamed in their eyes, and Xander tensed, hoping like hell the asshat hadn’t figured out how to upgrade his army to super-zombies.

But instead, every single zombie in the cemetery lost animation and crumpled like a puppet with the strings cut.

He heard Faith let out a sigh of relief, even a laugh. He tried to match her but his smile felt twisted, and he wiped it off his face before anyone could see. He followed Faith as she picked a path out of the truly gruesome collection of bones and body parts that littered the cemetery, yanking at his axe when he spied it in a pile of...something he decided not to look at too closely.

“Everyone alright?” It was Wood, but Xander ignored him. He took half a dozen steps away from the group and with shaking fingers pulled out the cigarettes he still carried in case of emergencies. He brushed snow off one of the taller headstones and sat, letting the head of his axe fall into the whiteness at his feet and the handle rest against one knee.

As smoke drifted off into the air above him, Xander looked up at the moon, trying not to remember other moons or think too hard about what had just happened. Or about how hard his hands were shaking.

Or about how he really didn’t want to go back to the apartment.

Dull pain throbbed in his chest, and he closed his eyes. God, he was so tired. Tired of thinking, hurting, being afraid. Being alone. Tired of _everything_.

The crunch of boots on snow brought him out of his self-pity party, and he hastily wiped his eyes, sniffed, tried to pull a neutral expression onto his face.

“You okay, X?” came the question. It was Faith, arms crossed and hip cocked.

“Oh, sure,” he replied, not bothering to hide the insincerity.

“Okay, so that was a stupid question,” she admitted, then added, “Got a spare?”

He didn’t reply, but held out the packet. She came and sat by him on the headstone, soon adding a cloud of smoke to his.

“Still can’t believe you took up the cancer sticks. Never thought you Sunnydale kids were the type,” she said lightly.

He would have smiled, but it’d probably still hurt too much. “Well, me and nicotine go way back,” he replied. His tone was neutral, but he really wished she’d leave him alone.

“You don’t smoke all the time, though, right? It’s a stress thing?” she asked, even though it wasn’t really a question.

Irritation rose inside him, and he paused before replying. He wouldn’t have thought she was the type for the careful approach to a sensitive topic, anyway, for testing the mood cause Xander Had Issues and had to be talked to carefully. If even _Faith_ was trying to be tactful...

Well, he really was fucked up, wasn’t he?

“If you’ve got something to say, Faith...” he trailed off, the tightness in his tone enough warning that his patience was thin.

She paused, then asked quietly, “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

He stared at her, shocked and furious. “Excuse me?”

She met his eyes, fronting up and not hiding the way she was studying him. “You froze, Harris. You went past the line like some amateur with an axe to grind, got yourself surrounded by zombies, and then you froze,” she said, completely frank and more serious than he’d ever imagined she could be.

Xander stared at her. Then he threw his cigarette away and stood. “Fuck you, Faith.”

“Hey! I’m trying to help you,” she yelled after him as he walked away.

“What the fuck is it with people wanting to _help_ me lately?” he spat, pacing back angrily.

“Maybe you fucking need it,” she replied icily. “I don’t know what the hell is really going on with you, but I can tell you what it goddamn looks like. It looks like you’re going into fights hoping to _lose_ , Harris. Like you’re throwing yourself at demons cause you’re hoping they’ll tear you apart. And after what happened in Morocco, you’re really getting angry at me for asking the goddamn question?”

His stopped, his stomach twisting again. Morocco. Three weeks of nothing but nightmares, no sleep, and he’d gone out without waiting for Faith or Navri and Corsa, the local slayers. It was hazy in his mind – lack of sleep always made his memory suck – and afterwards, he’d been in no state to do anything but breathe deep and try not to bleed out before they could get him to a doctor.

It wasn’t the same. But it obviously hadn’t earned him any points for occupational health and safety in Faith’s eyes.

“That was different,” he said hoarsely. “That was honestly an accident. I hadn’t been sleeping, and I...” He swallowed heavily. “I wasn’t thinking.”

“Okay,” she said, not really agreeing but giving him a pass. “So what was it this time? What the fuck happened tonight?”

He looked at her, terrified by the truth, and realised that under her anger, she was afraid as well. For him.

“It was...I had a flashback, I think,” he said, voice dull, still a little hoarse. He took the few steps back to the headstone on shaking legs, and sat heavily.

Faith looked surprised, and sat next to him cautiously. “What kind of flashback?”

He grimaced, and said bitterly, “I’m not about to take a knife to my arm, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“You sure about that?” she said with a raised eyebrow.

After a moment to swallow the nausea again, Xander hoped he wasn't lying and replied firmly, “Yes. It wasn’t...”

When he couldn’t go on, she asked, “What was it, then?”

“Suddenly I was...it was like I was back in Sunnydale, back when the First was...” He said it as casually as he could, trying to make out like it wasn’t his worst nightmare. But he couldn’t go on, couldn’t say it. It was so raw in his mind, even thinking it made him want to be sick again. “I could hear it’s voice. It...felt the same,” he managed haltingly. “Even the smell.”

Her smell, warm and homey, twisting through the rottenness around him. He shivered.

She sat, silent and apparently thinking. Xander slumped beside her. He was doing his best not to think, so after a moment he pulled out the pack of cigarettes again.

“This happen often?” she finally asked.

He exhaled. “No. Nothing like this has happened before.”

“But why now?” she asked with a frown.

He looked away to hide the expression on his face. He knew the answer, knew exactly why this was happening. Dean was _leaving_ , and the thought had him closer to tears than he wanted to admit.

“It’s just a bad night, Faith. Nightmares, you know,” he lied, fingers shaking, voice hoarse again.

After a pause, she asked pointedly, “Should I tell the others?”

He hesitated. “I don’t know,” he admitted slowly. “Probably not?”

She snorted, and Xander thought he heard a slight shake in her own voice when she said, “Yeah, I can imagine the fuss they’d make.”

“I’d never be allowed to fight demons again,” he replied, pretending to be dismayed. Pretending, hoping the lie of normalcy would cover how truly freaked out he was.

Faith offered a tired chuckle, then subsided into thought again. He left her to it, passing the cigarettes when she reached out a hand.

They smoked silently for a few minutes, and Xander stared up at the moon again. Some of the hurt inside him was filtering through, numbness fading as the last of the adrenalin from the fight wore off. For a few moments he wanted the sky to come crashing down, or time to stop, just so he wouldn’t have to face it.

But the world didn’t end. The cemetery was quiet, wind rustling through the trees above, and Xander could hear the distant sound of cars.

“Fucking hell, X,” Faith finally said, exhaling a cloud of smoke over their heads with a sigh. “How do we fix this? There’s gotta be something we can do about it.” She sounded out of her depth and dispirited, like she didn’t know what else to say. But he appreciated the ‘we’.

“It’s...it’s okay,” he offered. “There’s nothing you can do, and I’m...I’m fine. Really. I’ll be fine.”

“Oh, sure,” she replied, sarcastic but subdued.

He wasn’t exactly surprised that she didn’t believe him. “It’s just a bad night,” he offered bleakly, feeling guilty for lying, equally guilty for worrying her.

“Yeah? How many more bad nights can you afford?” she asked. “I might not be here next time.”

He couldn’t answer. A shadow fell across her face, and she looked like she wished it was different. That makes two of us, Xander thought glumly.

Silence between them, as Faith thought and Xander tried desperately not to. But as he stared off into the darkness of the cemetery, he couldn’t help but connect it all together.

Dean was leaving him again. Against all his better judgement, he’d followed his stupid heart and let himself believe it would all be different this time. In a single day, he’d let Dean back in, let himself remember what it felt like. And he _hated_ himself for it, because he should have goddamn known that this was going to happen.

What made it worse, though, was that this time Xander had actually _told him_ to leave. He hadn’t made the decision until he said the words out loud, heat of the moment, but he’d definitely pulled the trigger, and now...

Now Mary was torturing him for it.

He shuddered. Hearing her whispering in his ear like that made him want to call Giles and make sure there was no way she could be back, that she was definitely one hundred percent gone.

But he knew she was gone. This was just his own brain, fucking with him.

And fuck Dean for bringing this all back again. It was supposed to be over. He’d beaten her, he hadn’t given in when she wanted him to. It shouldn’t be coming back on him like this, and fucking him up.

 _Fucking Dean_ , he thought resentfully. Waltzing off into the sunset and leaving Xander a basket case again. Another ripple of pain at the thought, and part of him was berating himself for his unfairness even as the resentment settled in, and he exhaled raggedly.

He tried not to picture it. He tried not to imagine Dean pulling his coat on, checking for gloves or hat or weapons, flanked by John or Sam and heading down to a truck or whatever John was driving. Maybe he’d spare a thought for taking Xander’s clothes before he closed the door behind him. Maybe he’d regret it enough to look back as they drove out of town. Or maybe he’d wouldn’t.

The knowledge that he was never going to see Dean again kept sending waves of fresh hurt through him, kicking him when he was already on the ground bleeding and bruised. Leaving. _Jesus_.

In the hallway, back at the apartment, Xander had thought that there was no point delaying it, that it’d be like ripping off a bandaid. But maybe it shouldn’t have taken him kind of wanting to kill himself to realise it’d been more like ripping his heart out of his chest.

But hadn’t it already been ripped out by a blonde in a nightgown? Had he been looking at it all wrong, blaming Dean for making him vulnerable, when really he was only vulnerable when Dean was _gone_? He didn’t want to think about what kind of dependent, pathetic freak that made him.

Because Dean didn’t love him. And even if he did, he’d never stay. He would have left eventually.

Xander tried to cling to that, but it didn’t stop the pit growing in his stomach, promising him more sleepless nights, more nightmares, more regret. Anything was better than nothing. He should have waited, should have let Dean stay as long as he wanted. What the hell difference would it make? Xander could have lied to himself a bit longer.

But instead, Dean was leaving. Had probably already left. And it was all Xander's goddamn fault. If he could go back in time, he’d grab on with both hands and never let go. God, Xander couldn’t believe this was happening, couldn’t believe he’d fucked up so badly.

Faith sighed beside him, reminding him she was there. She’d just sat there, he realised, letting him think. Not pushing, not needling him for answers. And he deeply, deeply appreciated that.

“What should I do, Harris?” she said softly.

He couldn’t answer. He couldn’t even think about it. His brain was whirling around, trying to deal with Dean leaving, when all the time he should be freaked out about almost getting killed.

And he was. Somewhere underneath all the surface angst, all the worry and regret, there was a cold patch, a deep, unshakeable fear. In all his life, Xander had never been more certain that something could kill him. And, short of lobotomising himself, there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. Mary was in his head, and there was no way to get her out.

That knowledge was what made her so goddamn _tempting_. The only way to get rid of her was to do what she wanted. And it had Xander _terrified_.

“If you promise me you’ll be careful,” Faith said slowly. “If you promise me you’ll get help, I won’t tell the others.”

Xander turned sharply, about to ask what the fuck help she thought he could get, but stopped when he looked at her. Her profile was steady, but there was a sadness in her eyes that he’d never seen before.

It made him pause, made him take a deep breath. He didn’t want that same sadness on anyone else’s face. God, what about Giles and the girls? They’d...he’d...

He’d rather live with it, carry the burden of it deep down inside himself, than ever put that look on their faces. They couldn’t find out about this. He’d agree to anything.

“I promise,” he agreed shakily. And even though he had every intention of doing everything he could, emptiness yawned inside him. What if it happened again?

“What happens if...if it doesn’t work? What if...what if I fail?” he stammered, unable to look her in the eye.

After a pause, she said, “Broken promise, I guess. And broken hearts all around.”

He nodded, feeling his throat tighten. He known that, of course, but he’d needed her to say it.

A silence stretched between them again. Then Xander said roughly, ”I’m gonna take off.” He stood, lifting his axe out of the snow.

Faith looked up with a jerk, studying him closely. He let her, looking back and trying not to feel exposed.

Finally, she relented. “Alright, then.” After a pause, she added, “We’re supposed to go after a vamp nest tomorrow night, and I don’t want you to come.”

He wasn’t even insulted, and barely offered her a nod in response. He wanted out, wanted to fucking run. It was all he could do just to stand there, wait until it wouldn’t look suspicious.

“Just...take a break, X. Take a breather,” she added.

Take a breather. Abruptly he realised that would mean sitting alone in his empty apartment, thinking about—

She didn’t know. She didn’t know about Dean, about his empty apartment and how it would seem even emptier because for a few hours it hadn’t been. Nobody goddamn knew. God, it was just like the old days.

He shut the thought off before it could go further, but a wave of desolation swept through him anyway. He didn’t want Faith to see when he buckled under it.

“Fine. I’ll see you later,” he said abruptly, and hefted his axe over his shoulder.

Faith seemed satisfied. “Yeah. I’ll call you tomorrow, or whatever.”

Xander didn’t reply, already walking away through the snow. When he reached the edge of the cemetery, the streets were slick, wet where they’d been ploughed, and he left the slushy sidewalk with its gaping alley entrances to walk down the wide, empty street itself.

Numbness again, and he was grateful. Balancing his axe carefully, he managed to light another cigarette. His hands were shaking. His whole body was shaking, but he kept walking down the street, riding out the shocked, stay-of-execution feeling. But then, with yet another swell of nausea, everything he didn’t ever let himself think about washed over him.

Mary’s voice, soft and inviting, loud in his head again, promising to make it stop. Xander stumbled the few steps out of the middle of the road. Leaning shakily against someone’s car, he narrowly missed burning himself in the face with the cigarette when he put his head in his hands. The cold dug into his back, seeping through his coat, but he ignored it.

God, why did he _believe_ her? Why did he feel like he _wanted_ it?

How could this be his life? The fist was back in his throat, tears were pricking his eyes. He sank down, back sliding against the car door, and for a moment he let himself grieve. He’d never felt so goddamn _lost_.

He didn’t know how long he sat there. The street was quiet, and no-one passed. Finally, Xander’s ragged breaths subsided, and he caught his breath.

He was suddenly looking at the past six months of his life with different eyes, _open_ eyes. Every time he’d been hurt, every time he’d almost died. He hadn’t _cared_.

And she was what all his nightmares were about. Mary, her voice. She’d been with him the whole time. As the months passed, the dreams had gotten worse, not better. The constant lack of sleep made him feel so empty, so detached.

God, how could he not have realised that it wasn’t just going to stop? That whatever the First did to him was always going to be there, inside him, day after day, every goddamn hour, just weighing on him for the rest of his life.

Even now, he could feel it. Dark and thick, twisted through his mind, wrapped around his heart with an iron grip. He’d been ignoring it. Distracting himself with work, with Dracula, with finding slayers and fighting demons, and doing every damn thing he could think of not to be left idle enough to think about it.

And apparently, ignoring it had just made it worse. It’d been eating up his life without him even noticing.

Maybe the First had crossed some kind of line, broken down some don’t-die barrier in his mind. Whatever it was, it suddenly felt permanent, like he’d never be alright again. Like he’d never trust himself to fight, not knowing if she’d be there waiting for him.

And, he realised with a ringing in his ears, he’d never know if having Dean around again would have made a difference. If the flickers of hope he’d been feeling could have dragged him out from under it all. If not being alone might have made a difference.

He stopped, taking a deep breath to quell the fear. This felt like rock bottom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from a song by Nine Inch Nails.


	11. Down by the River

Dean wanted a time machine. He wanted to go back to the moment that afternoon, in the kitchen, when he’d been sitting on the floor with his back up against the counter, ass going numb, and Alex in his arms.

He could almost feel the weight against him still, the memory of it like a phantom touch, and he wanted it back so _badly_. Wanted the closeness, wanted them wrapped around each other again so tight he could feel Alex’s heart beating, feel his chest rise and fall as he breathed. He wanted Alex relaxed against him, not angry, not upset, not out fighting goddamn zombies without him.

More than anything, he wanted Alex to be safe.

Uncrossing his arms – which took effort, his muscles were tense and stiff – he turned away from the window and crossed back to the sofa. He sat heavily, rubbing at his aching head, and thought about sleeping. He should sleep – he was so tired – but he knew he wouldn’t be able to. Not until Alex came back.

Alex, who was out fighting zombies. Goddamnit. Dean should have gone with him. Should have gone, should have insisted. Better to go get beat up by the undead than sit here waiting, wanting to know Alex was alright so bad it hurt.

Better than sitting here, aching at the look in Alex’s eyes when he said Dean should leave because he didn’t believe Dean was going to stay.

 _You’re going to leave anyway. I just want you to get it over with._

Alex’s words were on endless loop in his mind, cracked with pain, and Dean hated it. He hated that so many years of leaving had obviously done so much goddamn damage. Was that all Alex could remember when he thought about them? Just the weight of accumulated good-byes?

 _Don’t drag this out._

And Dean knew that feeling, too, the cramping feeling in your chest that was waiting for goodbye. How waiting for someone to leave made every moment they were still there not worth a damn.

But he didn’t believe it. Or, to be totally accurate, he was going to put a stop to it.

Because he didn’t want to do it anymore. Didn’t want to say good-bye again, didn’t want to do that to Alex again. Or himself.

 _What happens if one of them dies, and you could’ve done something?_

Dean glanced over at Sam, crashed out on the sofa. Watching his brother twitch through another bad dream, he tried to weigh up needing to be with Alex with the long-ingrained urge to protect his family. Especially Sam, who was currently drooling onto his own shoulder. The past few months had proved Sam still needed him, and he’d be breaking the habit of a lifetime if he let Sam go off after the demon without him.

But the same thing that had driven Dean to come to Cleveland in the first place was still burning inside him. Wanting his family safe didn’t change the fact that more than anything, he wanted to be here. Wanted to make things right, wanted...

Wanted Alex. John and Sam were his past, his history, and everything he’d ever known, but Alex...

As clichéd as it sounded, Alex was his future. He could feel it, just like he’d felt it that day in the motel. The second Alex told him what he wanted, Dean had known. Reflex had him running – someone wanting him like that had scared the hell out of him – but when the panic died down and he’d stopped to think, he’d known it was right. And now he’d made it to Cleveland, made it back to Alex, and he’d sworn he wasn’t gonna run anymore.

Before John and Sam had showed up, he’d been starting to think Alex believed him. That he felt the same. The fact that he’d been willing to talk to Dean, willing to try, had opened up crack by crack...it’d made Dean think that their future wasn’t quite lost. It’d given him hope.

If Alex had told him to go and meant it, if he’d looked Dean in the eye and said it wasn’t going to happen, that he didn’t want Dean anymore, if he said it in a way that made Dean _believe_ it, maybe then he would have gone.

But not like this. Not with Alex telling him to go just because he thought Dean wouldn’t stay, pushing him away because he thought Dean was gonna leave anyway. Alex could try to push him, try to hurt him as much as he wanted. Dean wasn’t goddamn going anywhere.

He just had to make Alex see it. He had to prove he was serious, prove Alex would have to do a hell of a lot more if he really wanted Dean gone. And as much as he hated it, sitting on his ass while terrible things could be happening to Alex was pretty much the only way.

He was staying.

Hell, once John saw what Willow could do, once he’d been impressed by whatever Giles and the Council were putting together, he’d probably want to stay, too. Dean would bribe his father with contacts, he wasn’t above it.

And if John didn’t stay...if he didn’t, Dean would deal with it. He’d deal, Alex would get the point, someone would kill the demon, and then maybe that future could start happening.

Alex just had to get home in one piece.

And with that, Dean’s brain had come full circle. Back to freaking out about zombies. And had he really just been distracting himself by thinking about his _feelings_? He was kinda disgusted with himself. Sam had a lot to answer for.

But he had to admit it was preferable to the thoughts he kept having, visions of blood and brains in the snow, or splashed across some random headstone, and thank God he wasn’t the psychic one. He’d seen too many damn zombie movies, though, and his brain was reeling through them all in graphic technicolour.

Abruptly, Sam woke with an inelegant snort, jerking and looking around like he’d forgotten where he was. Under Dean’s watchful eyes, he relaxed back onto the sofa for a second, then asked muzzily, “What time is it?”

“Around midnight,” Dean replied quietly.

“He’s not back yet?” Sam said, voice still slurring a little with leftover sleep.

Dean didn’t reply. Blood and screaming, again, and nausea welled up inside him. With a grimace he stood, paced the floor. He could feel John’s eyes on him, watching from where he sat at the dining table.

“He’ll be fine,” Dean insisted, trying to convince himself as much as anyone else. But the horrorshow of groaning, lurching, munching figures kept on attacking Alex in his mind.

“Right,” John snorted, almost under his breath. His tone was disbelieving, and Dean narrowed his eyes, tension stiffening his spine.

“He said his friends will take care of him, and I believe him,” he snapped.

“Take care of him? Are you serious?”

“You’re the one who wanted to ask them for help. He says they can keep the demon away from him if it finds him here, and you don’t believe him?”

Dean could see John clench his jaw, but he stayed silent, so Dean decided he’d won that round. And maybe he could have stopped there, but he’d been anxious for hours, and the wasted adrenalin was turning into anger pretty damn quickly. Earlier, he’d decided not to beat his head against a brick wall and ask John why he’d had that fight with Alex, but now it was looking like a pretty good way to pass the time. Dean had heard the phrase ‘spoiling for a fight’ before, and hell, he was spoiling. Anything to keep him from thinking.

“And hey, can I ask you what the hell you thought you were doing? Not five minutes after I asked you not to put any pressure on him, you fight him about going out without us?”

“You fought with him too,” John pointed out.

“Exactly. He’d just shot me down about three times, and you thought he’d feel differently when it was you?”

John didn’t reply immediately. Dean could practically see him marshalling his patience.

“I wasn’t trying to fight with him,” John began, self-restraint in every syllable.

“Could have fooled me,” Dean interrupted.

“Dean, all I’ve been trying to do is keep him safe. I was trying to convince him he was safer if we were there,” John said, and Dean could hear the beginnings of anger.

It didn’t stop him, though. “About that. Is he?” he demanded. “He’s right about the weapon that we can’t actually use anymore,” he ground out, still furious about that particular issue.

John clenched his jaw. “Even without the colt, he’s still better off with us.”

Dean threw his hands up. “Oh, sure. Dad, _nobody_ is better off with us when it comes to this thing.”

“Dean, what the hell is the matter with you?” John snapped. “I know you’re freaked out and frustrated, but since when did you take that crap out on _me_? All I’m trying to do is keep him safe. You’re the one who let him go out alone.”

“Because he wanted to,” Dean snapped back. “ _Because he didn't want us there_. You think I don’t want to be out there protecting him? You think this waiting isn’t driving me frigging nuts? You think I don’t wish I hadn’t fucked everything up so goddamn badly that he—"

He stopped short, turned away, running a hand through his hair. That last bit had come out without his permission, and the sudden sympathy in his father’s eyes was too much. Goddamnit.

Arguing with John was just nailing home how useless he felt. How out of control everything was, and how much he’d fucked up. Dread was creeping through his guts and sending tendrils up his spinal cord, and he could feel nausea boiling like a storm cloud in his belly. _No_ , he told himself. _You have to wait_.

“All you have to do is say the word, and we’ll go after him, Dean,” John offered seriously.

Dean said, “We can’t. He doesn’t want us there.” His voice was rough. He went on haltingly, trying to move away from that particular heartbreak. “We don’t know where he’s gone, and even if we manage to track him down, we don’t have the weapons to fight with.”

He kept his voice calm, barely, but panic was tugging at his heart rate, making his hands twitch. He ignored the sympathetic, concerned looks from his family, well aware that he must sound completely insane but feeling a little too unstable to care.

“And we’re not going out looking for him, because I’m not going to risk him coming back and me not being here. Because then he’s gonna think I’ve _left_ ,” Dean finished, voice roughened again on the last few words. God, saying it out loud wasn’t making the situation suck any less.

John opened his mouth again, then shut it, nodding and pinching the bridge of his nose.

Dean rubbed at the back of his neck, trying to will the tension away. He repeated, “He’s gonna be fine. He’s gonna come back.”

And if there was doubt in his voice, it was because for all of Xander’s faith in his friends and the reassuring effect it’d had on Dean in the diner that day, that was then, this was now, and it’d been a long day since. Long night. Whatever.

There was a pause, and Dean heard a creak and a shuffle behind him as John shifted. When he’d finally mustered the control, he turned to face his father again, and found John with his elbows on the dining table and an attentive look plastered on his face. “Tell me more about how they’re protecting him,” he said. “Did he tell you what they’re doing?”

With a sigh, Dean crossed to the table and lowered himself heavily into a chair. Maybe going over it would help. Maybe they could all come up with some kind of plan, or some ideas or something.

“He didn’t tell me much,” Dean admitted, after hesitating a moment to let a fraction of the tension in his neck ease off, as the last of his freak-out slid back down. Sam had joined them silently, and his ‘attentive face’ rivalled John’s for intensity. “Apparently the hellmouth interferes with the demon’s magic or something. It can find him, and us, if it physically comes and looks, but this town’s like a Bermuda triangle for its radar or something.”

“What’s to stop it looking here? Physically, I mean, when it can’t find him anywhere else,” John asked, with a ‘that’s interesting’ tone in his voice. Maybe the attentive face wasn’t just a face, cause Dean could practically see the cogs working in the man’s brain.

“Alex said Willow laid some kind of trail, or set up some kind of decoy, pointing in the opposite direction.”

John frowned, but it was Sam who spoke up. “The opposite direction from what?” His brow furrowed into a thinking face Dean was way too familiar with. “They would have had to know where it was looking to lay a trail, so how did they find it so fast? How did they... You only got here this morning. How the hell do they know so much about all of this already?” he asked, frown deepening as his cogs whirred faster than anyone’s.

It took Dean a second to catch on, but then he groaned internally. Oh, this was going to go over like a lead balloon.

“Yeah, about that,” he began, then paused. Christ, how could he even explain this?

Keeping his eyes on the table, he repeated what he’d been told of his ghost act, and the little he actually remembered of standing between Alex and the forces of evil. “That’s how they knew I was sick, too,” he finished, and watched Sam’s eyebrows lift in recognition as an unspoken question was answered.

John, however, was practically quivering. He was silent for a moment, and when he spoke, his voice started out dangerously soft. “Are you telling me we’ve had a lead on the demon since _Friday_?” He stood with a jerk, shaking the table and shoving at his chair. “ _Goddamnit_ , Dean,” he shouted, fury in every line of his frame. “What the hell’s the matter with you? You didn’t think this was worth mentioning?”

Dean kept his head down. “There’s been a lot going on. I—“He stopped, unsure how to go on. He’d honestly just been too distracted to bring it up, and he suddenly didn’t want to apologise for that.

John didn’t reply, just stalked away across the room. Dean watched him go, surprised at the strength of the anger he saw. John paced back, ran a hand through his hair, anger and frustration in every movement.

Then he crossed back to his coat, picking it up and checking the pockets methodically.

He was leaving.

“Dad, what the hell are you doing?” Sam demanded, when Dean didn’t say anything.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” John shot back. “I’m getting ready to go check out that warehouse.”

“We agreed to wait—“ Sam began, before John cut in.

“That was before I knew there was a goddamn lead.”He had a dirty look on his face, but didn’t look over at Dean.

“It’s hardly a lead,” Sam argued, disbelief colouring his voice. “There’s probably nothing there.”

John didn’t reply, just pulled on his coat.

Dean was still sitting at the table, numb, unmoving. He’d been a little surprised that the old man was so angry, but that had faded too quickly. Now, as much as he really, really wanted to be surprised that the old man was bailing already, he’d had to drag the promise of time out of his father. Resignation felt bitter in his throat.

“Dad, _stop_ ,” Sam was saying. “You can’t go alone. What if the demon’s there? You’ll be killed.”

“I’ll be careful,” John replied sullenly.

“Yeah?” Sam said hotly. “What if it finds you, and follows you back here? What if you lead it to the hellmouth, and waste all the protection this place has to offer? How can you risk that right now?” he demanded.

John glared back at him stonily. That was it, then. John wasn’t going to change his mind. Dean folded his arms on the table, and dropped his disgusted gaze away from the scene by the door. “We’re back to that, are we?” he said softly, under his breath.

“Back to what?” John snapped, and Dean looked up. He didn’t think he’d said it loud enough be heard, but his father’s angry gaze was locked on him.

To hell with it, Dean decided.

“You disappearing,” he said bluntly. “Me and Sam not knowing if you’re alive or dead. Never able to get you on the phone.” Anger gathering steam again, he added, “You never believed that stronger-as-a-family crap, did you? Guess I shouldn’t have, either.”

“I’m only going to check out the damn warehouse, Dean,” John replied.

“Really?” Dean said, unconvinced. He stood, paced restlessly away from the table a few steps.

John looked down at his coat and sighed. “Really,” he said tiredly. “Look, let’s forget it, alright?”

Dean huffed a bitter laugh, turning on his heel to face John straight up. “What for? If you don’t want to be here, Dad, don’t let me keep you.”

John’s jaw clenched with frustration. “I just don’t want to miss anything. I would have thought you’d understand that. If we waste time, if we don’t goddamn _do something_ , Alex is going to wind up dead,” he said pitilessly.

Dean flinched, but it just fuelled his anger. “That’s not going to happen. Giles and Willow are—"

John interrupted. “So you’re just going to sit around and let them fix the problem?” he demanded. “It’s taken us twenty years to get as far as we have. And we need to be out on the road _now_. The trail is getting cold.”

And Dean should’ve known that _jurisdiction_ would be an issue. But right now, he didn’t goddamn care. “What do you want me to do, Dad? Let you and Sam go off without me and get yourselves killed? Or leave Alex a goddamn note?”

John opened his mouth to speak, but Dean refused to let him. “I know you were listening to me and him when we were out in the corridor. What the hell did you think that was about?” he demanded angrily. “All these years, he’s never once asked me to put him first. He’s never once asked me to choose him over you, over the goddamn job, and you heard him, he _can’t_ , even now. And I never have.” Dean paused, sick with self-disgust.

“I’ve left him every other goddamn time. And you’re asking me to do it again?” He stared at John, rage burning like a spike in his chest. Or a stake through the heart.

“No, that’s not what I’m saying,” John said, frustrated and trying to deny the accusation in Dean’s voice. “I don’t want you to lose him, I’m not even asking you to come with me this time. I just don’t want to lose a chance to take out the demon, Dean.”

“Fuck the demon,” Dean bit out. “You have no idea—"

“Stop,” Sam suddenly interjected, standing between them and forcing them apart. His presence made Dean realise how close they’d gotten, that he’d been advancing on his father like he was ready to start something.

Sam kept his hands out, one towards each of them. He looked between them, pleading. “Come on, stop.”

Dean backed away a bit, and took a second to wonder bitterly how Sammy liked being in the middle for once.

“Dad, please,” Sam tried, beseeching their father. “It can wait. It’ll only be another couple of hours. There’s probably nothing in that warehouse anyway.” He turned back to Dean. “And Dean—"

“What, Sam?” Dean said angrily. Sam wasn’t even a part of this fight – he was going to eject himself from their lives again as soon as he could – he could damn well stay the hell out of it. He turned back to his father, and when he spoke his voice was still bitter, but also final and unforgiving.

“Dad, if you really want to go? Go. If you can’t wait a few goddamn hours for him to get back, then you can go to hell. I’m not going with you.”

He hadn’t had the courage to even think the words before they came out of his mouth. But he suddenly knew it was time. If John couldn’t put the hunt on hold for one goddamn day, if he couldn’t give Dean what he needed so badly, then Dean couldn’t do it anymore. He didn’t have the strength.

And he ignored the steady thrum of fear in the back of his mind that had little or nothing to do with John, and everything to do with someone who wasn’t even in the room.

Dean’s words had frozen the room. Even Sam’s intervention was apparently stunned into silence, and he stared at Dean with an open mouth.

John’s voice had a dangerous edge to it when he replied. “What?” He was clearly shocked. “That’s your decision?”

But Dean bridled under the disbelief on John’s face. “No, Dad, that’s your decision. _You_ can leave now, and leave me here. Or you can be reasonable, and damn well wait like I asked you to,” he ground out. He felt like he’d hit his limit on what he could take. He couldn’t afford to give in this time. He had too much to lose.

But apparently, John hadn’t heard anything except ‘I’m not going with you’.

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this. You’re going to give up, after so long? What about Alex?” His voice held the first signs of righteous outrage.

“I’m not giving up,” Dean shot back defensively.

“That’s what it sounds like,” John pressed, his anger growing. “We’re so damn close, after all this time, and you expect me to let you just walk away? I never thought you’d be the one to abandon this family, Dean, but—"

“Don’t you _dare_ talk to me about abandoning this family.” Dean bristled at the accusation. “I’m the only one here who’s never abandoned this family.”

“I’ve never—"

Dean cut off John’s denial. “Bullshit. What the hell do you call last year, Dad?”

“I had business to take care of,” John replied, a strange look on his face and a desperate tone in his voice.

“And we spent a year not knowing if you were alive or dead,” Dean spat out. “So you look me in the eye and tell me to choose you over him. Because I won’t, not anymore. I already lost him once, and I _cannot_ do it again.”

“I’m not asking you to choose,” John shouted back. The desperation was still there, and through his anger Dean suddenly recognised the alien look on his father’s face. John looked deeply, deeply hurt.

Dean stared at him for a long moment, and John didn’t look away.

It took Dean a moment to register that he’d heard a harshly indrawn breath behind him, that before that he’d heard the slide of the front door. Then the realisation clicked, and he turned away from his father with a hot surge of hope, desperate to see...

Alex, standing in the doorway. Unsupported, unbloodied, head uneaten. He was staring at them all like he wasn’t sure what he was seeing. His gaze locked on Dean, and he stared like he’d never seen him before in his life.

“Hey,” Dean said, the wash of relief making him dizzy. All the negative crap he’d just been swimming in suddenly felt like nothing at all. “You’re back.”

“Yeah,” Alex said, still looking a little stunned. “You’re...you’re still here. What the hell?”

“Of course I’m still here,” Dean said hoarsely, too caught up in the giddy feeling in his chest to take offense at what was almost accusation. “I _promised_.”

Looking pale and more than a little shaken, Alex closed the door behind him and carefully lowered his gunged-up axe to the floor while he took off his coat. Dean took a few deep breaths as he tried to get his seesawing emotions under control again. He didn’t look at his father, but kept his eyes solely on Alex.

Who seemed to have a few bruises and scrapes, some smudges of dirt on his throat, but wasn’t breathing badly or moving like someone with a serious injury. The front of his sweater was torn up, but Dean couldn’t see any skin through it. When he lifted the axe, he moved easily, with no grimace of pain or anything.

Alex hesitated awkwardly, staring at Dean like he didn’t know what to do.

“Are you alright?” Dean asked, feeling calmer now that he could ask, and be answered.

“Yeah?” Alex replied, sounding unsure.

“Dean told us about the warehouse. The demon didn’t find you again?” Sam asked, with a worried look.

“No,” Xander said, then cleared his throat. He headed across the room, adding, “No, no sign of old yeller.” He was gripping the axe tightly, and still had the look of someone who was trying to adjust his worldview to the unexpected.

“What about the zombies?” Dean asked.

“All taken care of,” came over Alex’s shoulder as he escaped into the kitchen.

Dean’s knee-jerk reaction was to go with him, to keep him in sight. But he tried to keep his dependency under control, focusing on the sound of water running because it meant that Alex was fine. For now.

“Dean,” John began.

“I meant what I said, Dad,” he said, before John could go on. Dean had calmed down almost instantly, stress dissolving when Alex walked in the room. But at that moment, he didn’t regret a single word. “I’m sorry I got so angry, and you know this family means everything to me. But I _need_ to stay with him, no matter what it means for the job or the demon or whatever. And....and you should go if you really have to, but I hope...I hope you’ll stay until we can work something out.”

He met John’s eyes for a moment, trying to tell him he really didn’t want to lose him, lose them, He watched the wariness change to comprehension as his father actually heard him again. But then Dean turned away, and followed Alex into the kitchen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from a song by Neil Young.


	12. Since I've Been Loving You

Xander stood by the sink, bucket in front of him filling with water. His hands had moved automatically, leaning the axe carefully against the counter, unbuckling the machetes from his waist, and even adding dishwashing liquid to the bucket. Even now, they were cupping water, splashing his face, cupping more so he could rinse the sour taste out of his mouth.

But his mind was somewhere in the stratosphere. Or lost somewhere in the moment just after he opened his front door.

He’d thought about running. He hadn’t wanted to come back to the apartment, but he knew that if he took off, Faith would tell everyone what had happened in the cemetery, and he’d be hunted down like a dog. And then Willow and Buffy would lock him in a padded cell for the rest of his life and never trust him again.

So he’d sucked it up and come back. And Dean was still here. He’d stayed.

Xander had to grip the edge of the sink and take a few deep breaths before he could deal with that, because too much had happened that night, too much that was all about nightmares, and Dean, and Dean leaving. And Jesus, he’d almost... His brain was _broken_ , and so much of that had been about Dean being gone again.

But he was still here. Xander just couldn’t believe it. Dean was supposed to leave, he’d been _leaving_. But somehow he was still here. Dean was...

Dean was standing by Xander’s elbow, offering him the dirty axe.

“Hey,” he said casually, like this was something that happened every day.

Xander just stared at him, making no effort to disguise his disbelief. “You’re still here,” he managed, unable to keep from repeating himself.

Dean’s jaw clenched, but he let Xander stare. “Yeah, I am,” he said eventually. “I told you I would be.”

“Are you staying?” Xander asked, hating the vulnerable note in his voice.

“Yes,” Dean replied firmly. “Thought it was about damn time I stuck around, you know?” He went on more casually, contrasting the deadly serious look in his eyes.

As if that was a perfectly reasonable explanation. As if that was a perfectly reasonable thing to say when changing the habit of a lifetime, an acceptable statement to explain away the hugeness, the massive, monster-sized deal his continued presence in Xander’s apartment was.

Dean held out Xander’s axe, but Xander didn’t take it, just kept staring at him. After a moment, Dean dunked it in the overfilling bucket for him and turned off the water.

Under Xander’s scrutiny, Dean’s neutral expression sagged with weariness, and Xander could finally see the toll it was taking. The look in Dean’s eyes flicked from apology to sadness. “I know,” Dean said softly. “I get why you’re...I know you’ve got no reason to trust me on this.”

But then he raised his eyes to meet Xander’s. “But I swear to you, I am not leaving. Not this time. Not anymore.”

All Xander could see was that look, the same one Dean’d had when he said ‘I love you’.

Sure, the actual words weren’t there, but Xander was starting to wonder if maybe it all added up to the same thing. And, impossibly, a kernel of that warmth that had been snuffed out when John told his son he’d always be proud of him started glowing again in Xander’s chest. It had to be some kind of Pavlovian response, and it was small, too unsteady to really light his way out of the mess his mind was in. But it was there.

His stomach lurched. He felt completely overwhelmed, out of his depth and basically ill-equipped to deal with all of this. “Dean...” he said uneasily.

But as soon as he said it, Dean threw himself forward, pressing soft, pleading lips to Xander’s own.

Taken by surprise, Xander recoiled. But Dean followed, and Xander was in no state to fight him off. It took him a minute to respond, but suddenly the _warmth_ registered, and he kissed Dean back, demanding and desperate. His heart was racing, tension singing through his body like he was terrified. The hurt he’d been feeling bubbled up inside him, and his hands twisted angrily in the back of Dean’s shirt.

Dean responded, and for a moment their kiss grew almost violent. Dean bit at Xander’s lip and gripped his hips so hard Xander knew it’d leave bruises, but Xander wasn’t letting go. He had a horrible feeling inside him, like he’d escaped something by the skin of his teeth. Like he’d been hanging off the edge of the abyss, holding on by his fingertips. Dean’s grip was pulling him back, holding onto him so tight, just when he needed it most.

Then, without warning, it changed. Dean was tender, clinging, and somehow pouring apology into every kiss. He pulled Xander closer like he couldn’t stand that they were all of two inches apart, and Xander started to get lost in the touches. For a moment, he wondered irrationally whether maybe this could solve all of his problems, and even if it didn’t, maybe he should do it anyway. Dean wanted him, and God help him, Xander wanted him right back.

He was just starting to forget everything when the top of Dean’s jeans scraped against the wound on his belly, and he had to jerk back.

He hissed in pain, glancing down at the forgotten claw marks as he pulled away from Dean. Xander touched the ragged patch on his sweater, surprised when his fingers came away red. The blood was camouflaged against the dark fabric, and he hadn’t even realised he was bleeding.

“Jesus Christ,” Dean exclaimed. “What the hell?” He grabbed Xander’s arm, eyeing the blood on his fingers with something that looked like panic, then stared accusingly at Xander’s stomach.

“It’s just a scratch,” Xander said, dismissive. “I got a bit of claw action but it’s not deep.” Before he’d even finished speaking, Dean had pulled up Xander’s sweater and t-shirt to look for himself.

There were four cuts low on his belly, two of them barely more than scratches and only one that was nasty enough to bleed so much it stained his sweater. They hurt, a dull burning ache, but he was fine, really.

Slowly, Dean ran a shaking finger down one of the lighter scratches, showing more care and seriousness than the slight wound deserved. Xander’s breath hitched. Dean’s fingers were warm.

“I’m fine, Dean,” Xander said softly, abruptly remembering the story of a mother on the ceiling, her stomach red with blood.

“Yeah, you’re just standing here _bleeding_ while I’m...” Dean stopped, pulling back and trying to pull his walls back up. “We should get that cleaned up.” He cleared his throat. “Where’s the first aid kit?”

“Bathroom,” Xander replied. “I’m fine, I just need to wash it out or something,” he said over his shoulder as he left the kitchen. He felt frazzled and a little dizzy, suddenly dislocated, like he wasn’t sure what was going on. It hit him again; Dean had _stayed_. Stayed and _kissed_ him.

“You look like you need stitches,” Dean shot after him, clanking the machetes into the bucket with the axe.

“I’m fine,” Xander called back, but as he crossed the living room he held one hand over his stomach and absently looked at the blood under his fingernails.

“What the hell happened to you?” John demanded, suddenly there and looking at Xander’s front, grabbing at his wrist to examine his hand. Xander had a second to panic, because he’d completely forgotten John and Sam were still in the apartment, and Dean hadn’t left with them but instead he’d stayed, he’d kissed Xander, and Xander felt like it was written all over his face.

And then a thought untangled itself from the rest of the snarl in his mind, and for several moments he was honestly too stunned to say anything. The scene when he opened the door replayed in his brain, in vivid technicolour detail. They’d been fighting, and John had said...Dean had said...

Dean had chosen him. The realisation was like a cannonball, and the rest of his freak out was blasted away like so much white noise.

He scrambled for focus, all too aware that the man in question was standing in front of him. Gritting his teeth, Xander waited for the fallout from Dean’s decision.

But John just stood there, checking Xander over and pulling his sweater up a little more gently than Dean had done. His expression was too concerned to be called impassive, but he was definitely lacking the rage and resentment Xander would have expected he’d direct at the man who stole his son away.

Noticing Xander’s surprised study of him, John frowned. “Alex? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Xander managed. Sam was there, too, looking over his father’s shoulder anxiously, and the bleeding stomach thing had to be freaking them both out. “Zombies, you know? Just a zombie,” he stammered out.

They both relaxed visibly, and Xander had an odd pang of guilt for worrying them, mixed with surprise that they were so concerned. Dean chose. Why weren’t they pissed off?

Dean chose. He chose him. And he wanted to stay.

Shaking his head a little to clear it, Xander pulled himself back from another freak out, cleared his throat and said, “I’m just gonna go clean it up. You know, antibiotics, holy water, that sort of thing.”

“Good, you should do that,” John said, and the approval and warmth in his voice just added to the weirdness. “Dean? Go with him, he looks like he needs stitches.”

Xander felt his eyebrows approach his hairline at John’s casualness in sending them to the bathroom together. Dean also looked a little surprised, but Xander felt like he was reaching his daily limit on shock, so he mentally washed his hands of the situation and headed to the bathroom.

When his boots had tile under them, he pulled his sweatshirt and t-shirt off at the same time, wincing as the movement stretched his wounded skin, and bent down to pull the industrial-sized first aid kit out from under the sink.

The kit hit the counter with a thump. Xander got a grip on the edge of the bench and had to stand there and breathe again. He wanted to sit down with his head between his knees, because holy shit, how could all of this be _happening_?

Dean had stayed.

John and Sam had stayed, too. John didn’t care. John didn’t _care_ , for fuck’s sake.

Sam didn’t care either, and he wasn’t an asshole, he was just friendly and really, really tall. They both seemed concerned, about _him_.

So was Faith. She knew about him, she _knew_ , and that was the scariest thing ever, because Xander had only just realised there was something to know, and now Faith could tell people.

Xander wasn’t even sure if he should stop her, because he’d clearly had some kind of breakdown and he was _terrified_ of what might happen the next time he fell asleep, or the next time someone put a blade in his hands.

And instead of leaving, Dean was apparently staying. _Staying_. And one way or another he kept saying ‘I love you’, and it was a little hard to take in.

All of it was a little hard to take in. All Xander could do was breathe.

“You okay?” came a voice from the doorway.

And Xander almost laughed. He lifted his head and shot Dean an ‘are you kidding me?’ look. “Oh, sure,” he managed. “I’m fine.”

He was teetering on the brink, hanging by a thread, and freaking out again because Dean was the scariest part. Just being close to him made everything else seem far less frightening. He made everything feel...possible. And it hurt to feel that, after so long.

Jesus, his own brain wasn’t making any sense. Xander shook his head again, wondering what it would take to shake some sense back into himself. Take it one step at a time, some sensible part of his mind suggested, and hell, that’d probably work better than just about anything else he could do right now.

Deliberately focusing on the practical first, Xander straightened and opened the first aid kit. He could feel Dean watching him, feel Dean’s eyes burning a spot between his shoulder blades, but he kept his eyes down. Hopefully the familiar task of patching himself up would keep his poor confused brain from overloading more than it already had.

Digging through the kit, he fished out some gauze and antiseptic, wadding the gauze so he could swab at his stomach. He eyed the gash, remembering the filth-laden claws most of those disgusting things had, and pulled out an economy-sized bottle of holy water that had a tube at the top for squirting those hard-to-reach vampire bites. Leaning over the sink, he started to squeeze holy water out over his belly, washing out the cuts.

Blessed water was probably overkill, but you couldn’t be too careful.

The scratches didn’t hiss or steam or anything, but Xander kept squirting until he was sure they were clean. He’d pressed the gauze in below the scratch to keep too much water from running onto his jeans, and when he was done he squeezed it out and dumped it in the sink.

Without looking up at Dean, he grabbed another wad of gauze to use with the antiseptic, and returned his attention to his stomach.

He felt more than saw Dean came closer. After a pause, he picked up the discarded, now mostly-empty bottle. “Holy water?” He sounded curious.

“Yeah, well,” Xander mumbled, intent on swabbing his belly and not thinking too hard. “Zombies are foul and magically corrupt. I figured it was a good idea.”

“It is a good idea,” Dean agreed mildly, setting down the bottle. He watched Xander cover his stomach in antiseptic, and said, “I really think you could use some stitches in that.”

“I’m getting to it,” Xander conceded. Now that he’d cleaned them out, he could see that one of them probably was gory enough for a few stitches.

“...can I help?” Dean said cautiously.

Xander hesitated. He needed distance, needed some space to figure out what was really happening between them. Needed space to get his fucking head together. Letting Dean touch him really wasn’t going to help at all.

But, moving slowly and feeling like he’d regret this in the morning, he gave up on what little distance he had, put the antiseptic down on the counter and rummaged in the first aid box until he found the needle and thread. Without a word, he handed them to Dean.

***

John listened to the lack of noise coming from the bathroom, and with some effort, he managed to relax his jaw. Alex would be fine. The cut was just zombies, and he hadn’t seen the demon. He’d be fine. They were fine.

Except he still couldn’t believe he’d fought with Dean again, couldn’t believe he’d lost his temper like that. And he really didn’t want to think about what Dean’s choice had been, or why he might have made it.

All of this was so much worse than he’d thought. Dean was so hurt, and so afraid. And John couldn’t even blame him; he could only imagine how he might have reacted if he’d know in advance what would happen to Mary.

But the demon was getting further and further away by the second – or possibly closer, closer to killing another of the Winchester’s unfortunate loved ones – and John could _feel_ it, like sand slipping through his fingers.

They were working on borrowed time. None of them could afford to fail again.

Least of all Dean. Couldn’t he see it? His Alex was safe enough, safely out of the demon’s reach, for now, anyway. Alex was _alive_ , which was more than John or Sam could say. Surely Dean would want to do everything possible to keep it that way?

And that meant hunting. It meant getting out on the road and looking for the damn thing, tracking it. It meant searching for a new weapon.

As the urgency spread through him again, John huffed, turning on his heel to walk to over to the table again, gazing unseeing down at a newspaper printout about electrical storms in Iowa. He tried to rein himself in, tried to remember the look on his boy’s face when he’d accused John of abandoning them. That was not going to happen again, not this time.

Not that it’d happened before. Although, as much as the idea got his blood up, he could see how it might seem that way.

But coming from Dean, the accusation was still a surprise. Dean, who’d never seemed to need him. Who’d always understood, always fought and hunted and done what he was told. Dean, who’d always shown the kind of independence that was all about taking care of himself and Sam, and letting John...

Letting John leave.

With a sick feeling in his stomach, John sat at one end of a sofa and let his head fall into his hands for a moment. It was true. All he’d ever done to his boys, to Dean, was leave them. No wonder Dean had grown to accept it from him. So many years of trying to protect them, trying to keep the worst away from them. Trying to keep the worst _in him_ away from them.

Trying to take the hate and rage out on any evil creature he could find, because it burned in him, and he didn’t want his sons to see it.

It was still there, whether Dean knew it or not. The same drive, flaring so hard because they were so damn close.

John stood abruptly to pace again, trying to press his impatience down again. Dean needed him now, he reminded himself. His son had actually asked, for once, asked for something so important. And John wanted to give it to him.

As he crossed the living room for what must have been the thousandth time since he and Sam arrived, he could feel Sam’s eyes on him, watching every step he took and watching even closer when those steps took him closer to the door.

“What?” he finally said, unable to take the scrutiny anymore.

“So are you leaving, or what?” Sam demanded.

John paused before replying. “No, Sam, I’m not.”

“Are you just trying to fuck with him, then?” There was a hard note in Sam’s voice.

John glared at him and didn’t reply.

“Well, what the hell, Dad? Would you care to explain why you’re forcing him to choose between his family and the person he loves?”

“I’m _not_ , Sam, Jesus,” John denied, impatient with the suggestion.

Sam was unconvinced. “Yeah, right,” he muttered, but apparently gave up trying to get an answer out of John.

And John realised he couldn’t stand to lose Sam’s faith again, not on this. “It’s possible I overreacted about the warehouse,” he conceded.

“Possible?” Sam repeated, voice dripping with disbelief.

“I know, alright?” John snapped. “Look, I never expected—"

“Dean to finally tell you where to shove it?” Sam interrupted.

“No,” John went on after a pause, gritting his teeth and praying for patience. “But that’s not it. I just...there’s even more at stake, now. Alex is a target, a living, breathing target for the demon, and we know he’s a target,” he insisted, searching for the words that would make Sam see the difference. “We _know_. And if there’s _anything_ we can do, if we have even a remote lead...” he trailed off, unable to explain.

Sam seemed to get it, though, seemed to understand John’s sense of obligation, of opportunity. He sat back on the couch, uncrossed his arms and blew out a breath, ran a hand through his hair, as he thought about it. John turned to stare out the window, tense and waiting and wondering where the demon was.

When Sam spoke, it was softly. “No-one’s giving up, Dad. But it knows we don’t have a weapon anymore, and that means there’s only a couple of possibilities.” He went on, even and rational. “Either it thinks we’re not a threat and it can come after us whenever it wants. Or it’s already looking for us and can’t find us because we’re here.”

He paused, then added, “Either way, don’t you think this is a good time to take stock and come up with some new ideas? Talk to Alex’s friends, work out what to do next?” It was a question, but Sam knew he was right, knew it was the only option. He knew John would know it, too.

John pressed down on his impatience for what thankfully felt like the last time, and rubbed at the tight muscles on the back of his neck. “I know, Sam,” he said, nodding in his son’s direction. “I just want this over,” he added tiredly, wondering when the hell Sam became the level-headed one. John hated how out of control everything was. How out of control _he_ was, and how controlled he got by his own drive for revenge.

“We all do, Dad,” Sam replied. “Dean too. But if you push him, I think you really will lose. He’s serious about staying.” Sam paused, and John took the opportunity to lower his tired body onto the sofa again, more carefully this time. He felt like he was finally crashing from the drive, finally winding down.

Softly, Sam added, “When he thought Alex was dead, he told me the worst part was how much he regretted. How they’d wasted so much time when they could have been together but weren’t. I think most of all he doesn’t want to waste that time again.”

John mulled over the information, then, after a pause, asked, “He said this? Out loud?”

Sam half-laughed. “Yeah, after about eight whiskeys and a punch in the face.”

John raised his eyebrows, surprised.

“None of this has been easy,” Sam said frankly. “I’ve never seen him so messed up.”

“Jesus,” John muttered. His boy. Both his boys, he realised, eyeing Sam and seeing grief in the creases of his forehead, his downcast eyes. “I’m so sorry, Sam, I wish I’d been there.”

Sam looked up, met his eyes, and John thought maybe he understood that John didn’t mean just there for Dean, that he should have been there for Sam, too.

“You’re here now,” Sam said softly.

John sat thinking for another moment. “I really should try to talk to Dean.” He barely waited for Sam’s nod of agreement before he was up and walking towards the bathroom.

As he came to the doorway, though, John stopped and drew back, his breath catching when he saw inside. He hadn’t realised his footsteps had been so muffled by the carpet, but neither Dean or Alex had noticed his presence.

John didn’t mean to spy, but couldn’t help but watch for a moment, stunned by what he saw.

Dean was sitting on the closed toilet seat, with Alex standing before him. His nose was a few inches away from Alex’s belly, a frown on his face as he concentrated every ounce of energy on sewing up the gash in Alex’s skin.

And Alex wasn’t flinching or fidgeting under the needle. He was almost completely still, with his head bowed. He was gazing down at Dean, watching the movement of his back and shoulders as he bent to the task.

But his normally shuttered expression was open and vulnerable, and John was horrified by the mix of pain, despair and plain sadness in his eyes. Alex looked like he was on the brink of something, like the broken weariness John had glimpsed when he first arrived had been magnified and given a jagged edge.

For the first time, John actually connected the kid standing in front of him with the stories he’d heard, with the rumours about the last few months before the fall of Sunnydale. If everything, hell, _anything_ he’d heard was true...

He shuddered. He didn’t want to think about what kind of leftover stress the kid might still be dealing with, what kind of trauma he might be having nightmares about. John only had rumour to go on, but from what he’d heard, there was no way this kid had escaped without scars.

And now they’d brought the demon down on him.

John suddenly understood what Dean had been trying to tell him. Dean probably didn’t even know the full story yet, about Sunnydale, but he knew Alex, knew that he shouldn’t be pushed because he was at the end of his rope already. And right now, the strain was written all over the kid’s face.

Protectiveness surged in his chest, and John decided grimly that he had a lot of time for this kid, a lot of patience. If he’d seen half the stuff he’d heard this kid had seen – and ‘kid’ was right, Alex couldn’t be more than twenty-five – John was fairly sure he’d be a complete basket case. If anyone had the right to be a stubborn, pissy little bastard about everything, it was this kid.

John could wait him out, wait for him to trust them. And he was going to do every damn thing he could to make sure Alex was safe.

As he kept watching, John was surprised to see longing start to mix in with the other emotions on Alex’s face. Then, unseen by Dean, Alex silently lifted a hand, holding it like he was about to rest it on the back of Dean’s neck. But it stayed suspended in midair like there was something holding him back, like he couldn’t actually bring himself to make contact with Dean’s skin.

John frowned. It was almost like Dean was something Alex wanted but didn’t dare reach for. But that didn’t make sense, because Dean had all but said he was there for the taking.

Before John could say anything, before either boy could realise he was there, Alex suddenly flinched, hissing. The hand in question came down past Dean’s neck to his wrist, pulling him away where he’d obviously jabbed too hard with the needle.

“Sorry,” Dean said quickly, looking up at Alex. “I’m sorry, I just...”

“It’s fine,” Alex interrupted, all the emotion of a moment ago gone like it had never been. This kid was good, John realised, really goddamn good at hiding it all.

“Really, it’s okay,” Alex added. “You’ve always been good at that. You still are.”

John knew Dean well enough to spot the blush; it only affected the tips of his ears. He bent back down again.

“I’m nearly done,” he promised. “I hope I didn’t hurt you too badly.” Dean’s voice cracked just a little on the words.

Alex seemed to give the question far more thought than it deserved, and when he replied, his voice carried too much weight for a casual comment about stitches.

“No,” he said. “No, you haven’t.”

Dean looked up, startled by the response and possibly by the double meaning in Alex’s words. His eyes searched Alex’s face anxiously, and Alex looked back unflinching.

John was surprised as well, because only a moment ago, he’d been thinking that Alex was far from a sure thing where Dean was concerned. But now it looked like Alex was making up his mind, and he might just be choosing Dean back.

Some of the earlier sadness returned, but Alex managed a slight smile. This time, his hand made it to the back of Dean’s neck and stayed there.

With the other, Alex gestured to his belly. “You done yet?” he asked, a hint of demand in his voice.

“Bossy,” Dean muttered, but there was a look on his face that John had never seen before, an awed, lucky smile welling up in his eyes.

Shaken, John finally retreated back to the living room.

“Did you even talk to them?” Sam asked.

“Dean’s almost done with the stitches. They’ll be out in a minute.”

He walked to the table and shuffled the papers around again. And couldn’t stop a slight smile from flicking across the corners of his mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from a song by Led Zeppelin.


	13. Where Boys Fear To Tread

Dean finished the stitches, tying off the last with a slight tug at Xander’s skin.

“Okay, that should do it. Let me just...” He carefully smeared antiseptic over the now-closed gashes, then attached a bandage over the worst part.

“Thanks,” Xander said softly. Dean’s touch was firm and capable, purely practical, and Xander never thought he had a kink for that kind of thing, that it was the kind of touch to send sparks shooting up his spine and tingles through his stomach. But every moment Dean was in contact with his skin was torture. The warmth, the _touch_ , the _skin_... All of it made Xander want more. Their panicked, desperate kiss in the kitchen hadn’t come close to enough.

But he didn’t move, didn’t let it show. And he was relieved that the door was open, that John and Sam were just outside, because they kept just a little bit of distance between them, kept Dean from getting too close. Xander was getting more and more sure that right now, getting close to Dean again would send him over the edge, and not in a good way. Everything was too complicated, his mind was still racing, and that kind of intimacy at this point would probably make him fall apart.

Right now, it’d be one more promise he didn’t know if he’d be able to keep.

Hopefully Dean knew everything had changed since that afternoon, in the kitchen. Hopefully he wasn’t going to hold Xander to everything he’d said and done before John and Sam arrived, before the zombies. Before Xander realised just how _broken_ he was. Everything had changed since then.

Dean, oblivious to the confused mess in Xander’s brain, stood and rested a hand on Xander’s hip as he leaned across to dump the leftover first aid stuff in the sink. The touch sent another spark through Xander.

Everything had changed except the feeling Xander got with Dean’s hands against his skin. The other feeling, the one that was beneath the immediate want. Xander knew he was in love with Dean. He could feel it.

And right now, instead of panicking him, that feeling was making him feel grounded. It was like an anchor, holding him in and making him feel like what happened in the cemetery had happened to somebody else, or happened so long ago it was barely worth mentioning. Like it wasn’t important. Like things weren’t so bad, and if they touched for long enough, Xander could maybe be alright again.

But wasn’t that the goddamn problem? Dean made him feel safer, for some reason, but he shouldn’t be the only thing holding Xander together. Because if he left...if he left...

He swore he wasn’t going to. He’d promised, and Xander wanted to believe him. He wanted to believe so badly. He wanted Dean to tell him everything was going to be better from here on out, that demons and memories didn’t matter, and Xander wanted to convince himself that Dean was going to stay.

Dean had said it, and said it again, Xander remembered. He'd said _I love you_ without saying the words.

“Dean, I—“ he said almost involuntarily, then stopped.

No. No, he couldn’t do it.

Every moment had been taking him closer to breaking down and telling Dean everything. About Sunnydale, about the First, about Mary. Confessing, so Dean could tell him it was alright, that it’d be okay. He’d never wanted someone to lie to him so badly.

But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He’d have to tell Dean how fucked up he was.

How the hell could he explain it, anyway? What words could he use to describe exactly how he’d become someone who couldn’t be trusted in life or death situations, because he apparently had trouble holding onto the _will_ to _live_?

He’d been so sure he was okay, that he was dealing with it all. And to find out that it wasn’t over, that it could come back like this, that it’d been there the whole time without him realising...

As grounded as Dean made him feel, as amazed as Xander was that he was still there, as much as Xander wanted to start believing that it meant maybe now there could be something between them... Would it really make a difference? Would it fix it, fix this thing inside him, make it all go away? How could it? How could it even help, if he still wasn’t sure Dean was even going to _stay_?

But if he didn’t say anything, if he kept lying and Dean stayed...Dean would keep on thinking that Xander could _do_ this, that one day they could be normal again. And that didn’t seem fair, suddenly.

Xander shuddered again. “I don’t—“ he said, and once again stopped, trapped. He _couldn’t_.

He didn’t want to lie, didn’t want Dean to keep thinking he was alright. He couldn’t lie to himself about that anymore – he _wasn’t_ alright. He was the fucking textbook definition of ‘not alright.’

But with it all so raw, so recent, he just couldn’t _explain_ , couldn’t _talk_ about it. Bad enough that he had to think about it, that he had to know. If _Dean_ knew...

Xander didn't know what would happen. What if it drove Dean away? What if it didn't? What if Dean just...looked at him differently? And maybe that was a minor detail, but it felt pretty important to Xander, all of a sudden.

The feel of warm hands on his upper arms dragged Xander back to reality. “Hey, it doesn’t matter,” Dean said anxiously. “I’m not going anywhere. Tell me later.”

He ducked down a little to meet Xander’s eyes, trying to reassure him. And some of what Xander was thinking must have been showing on his face, because as Xander’s uncertain silence stretched, Dean’s frown grew, the scar on his forehead twisting with it. “Alex?” he prompted anxiously.

Xander nodded, not really feeling it. “Yeah, okay. I just...I still don’t know what...” He shut his mouth again, irritated at his inability to find the right thing to say, to find _anything_ to say.

God, what the hell was he going to do?

Dean’s concerned gaze reached a new level of worry, and Xander finally managed to say, “I just...I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.” Which was true, if not nearly enough to describe how he felt.

“You don’t have to know, not right now,” Dean promised. “We’re still going slow, and you’re...you’re going to decide, okay? As much as I want...” He paused as his voice cracked. “The last thing I’m going to do is push you into something, Alex. I’ll wait. I swear, I’ll wait until you decide.”

Xander felt tears prick his eyes. Dean thought he was just talking about them, and Xander couldn’t tell him it was _bigger_ than that. He wanted to warn Dean that he might be waiting _years_ for Xander to sort through all of this shit.

But Dean was looking at him, serious and determined. He’d brought a hand up to the back of Xander’s neck, to make sure their eyes met, and now he brought the other up around Xander’s waist. He tightened his arms, but slowly enough to let Xander decide whether he wanted to be pulled in or not.

Xander let himself be pulled.

They didn’t kiss, this time. Dean just hugged him, and eventually Xander relaxed and let Dean hold up some of his exhausted weight. His arms gradually inched around, embracing Dean like there was no tension or pressure between them.

They stood there, and Dean held onto him so tightly. And just like it had in the kitchen, it felt like Dean was pulling him back from the brink, pulling him back to himself. Like Dean was something to hold onto in the middle of all the mess, and God, after everything that’d happened, that feeling still _hurt_.

Xander hugged him back anyway, and felt a shudder go through Dean’s body.

“I missed you,” Dean whispered shakily.

Tears pricked Xander’s eyes again. “I’m sorry,” he whispered back helplessly.

And he was. Sorry for failing, sorry for being weak enough to break. Sorry that he was still so fucked up by it all, sorry that he didn’t know if he was ever going to be alright again. Sorry he wanted to believe Dean so badly, sorry that he was probably going to get his heart broken again. And so goddamn sorry that he wasn’t brave enough to tell Dean the truth.

Clenching his eyes shut, he hugged Dean a little harder, clinging and hoping miserably that the rest of the world would just leave him alone.

Miracle of miracles, it did. He didn’t know how long they stood there – maybe only a few minutes – but nothing interrupted. Then, with effort, Xander pulled himself together, and the guilt faded to a more manageable level. Nothing was resolved, he hadn’t really decided anything, but Dean had said he could take his time.

Hopefully, it would all look easier in the morning, and daylight would make everything a bit less fucking frightening. One step at a time, he reminded himself. Now all he had to do was get through the rest of the night.

***

John waited impatiently for the boys to come out of the bathroom. He couldn’t hear voices, but the stitches had to be done, so he didn’t know what they were doing. And the door was wide open, so it couldn’t be anything too intimate. He grimaced. Hopefully the lack of privacy the two of them were going to have over the next few days wasn’t going to be too much of a problem.

But they’d work that out when it came up.

Right now, he hated the thought that Dean was anything less than one hundred percent confident of John’s pride in him. He’d left Alex and Dean in the bathroom, given them space, but he was getting impatient. This was all his fault, and he needed to fix it. Ever since the demon had shown him Dean’s heart, John had wanted things to be different. Saving Dean’s life had been more important, and he’d sacrifice himself for Dean again in a second. But since he had another chance, he wanted to get it right.

Finally there was some shuffling, a murmured word or two. Dean came out first, coming towards the living room with a stressed out expression on his face. John’s eyes flicked past him and saw Alex heading down the corridor, presumably to the bedroom for a new shirt. John had a second to frown at some alarming scars on the kid’s back when they caught the light, then refocused on Dean, who stood hesitantly in front of him.

“Dad...” he began, and John could see the mix of remorse and defiance on his son’s face.

“Dean, don’t apologise to me,” he said gently, before Dean could say anything else. “You’re putting him first, and right now, that’s fine.”

Dean frowned, darkness in his eyes. “But I didn’t want to...” He broke off when John shook his head insistently.

“What you said...you had a point. I’ve been—“ John stopped, frustrated that he couldn’t find the right way to insist he wasn’t angry.

After a moment, he simply said sincerely, “I’m sorry.”

The guarded expression came back, and John should have expected it. He shouldn’t be disappointed, shouldn’t be hurt, and really shouldn’t have been stupid enough to hope it would all end there. Dean’s trust would have to be earned back, he knew that.

But then Dean’s eyes changed, and John saw the moment when his son decided to believe him.

“I’m sorry, too, for saying it,” Dean offered quietly.

“It’s okay, Dean,” John replied, unable to keep the smile off his face. This was a start.

Dean glanced over at Sam, but before he could say anything, Alex shuffled into the room behind him. He was wearing a sweatshirt and an uncertain expression, and completely stole Dean’s attention. The kid’s eyes were on John, though, wary and doubtful. Tension filled the room for a moment, and Dean looked between them anxiously.

John braced himself. He wasn’t about to take the blame entirely for fighting with Alex. Dean, yes, but given the gut wound, Alex needed to learn when to hold a grudge and when to ask for backup.

But he had to face the fact that, as unintentional, indirect and practically uninvolved as John had actually been, he was responsible for all of this. It was his fault Dean had kept Alex a secret all these years, his fault Dean had driven to Cleveland alone. The demon had shown him that much. And it was John’s fault they hadn’t killed the thing already. His fault Alex wasn’t safe.

Apart from all that, the last thing he wanted was for Dean to feel torn between them. That was one thing he needed to put a stop to.

So John sucked in a breath and said, “I owe you an apology, for a lot of different things. So I’m sorry.”

John felt Sam and Dean’s astonished eyes on him. He almost bristled; they didn’t need to be so shocked. John knew he was proud and stubborn, but he could apologise when it mattered. Hell, he’d apologised to Dean all of two minutes earlier. But he stood his ground, focused on the kid, and tried to ignore his own self-consciousness.

Alex seemed stunned as well, though, and just stared at him. John kept his expression even. Hopefully Alex would see that he meant it, hopefully the kid would take this for the white flag it was meant to be.

***

Xander stared at John. Fresh from the bathroom, this felt a little bit like it could be the proverbial straw. One more thing, on top of everything else. And it wasn’t that he didn’t think John had the balls to apologise, but he never would have expected to rate the courtesy.

And it felt _important_ , like some kind of turning point. Xander really wasn’t sure he wanted to deal with another one of those right now. Surely he’d reached his quota of life-changing moments for one day?

But John was waiting, and as Xander’s brain ticked over, he realised what the choice he was being offered actually was.

He could reject the apology, dismiss it out of hand. He could remember every time John called, and Dean left. He could remember every hint Dean had given him that his father was a hard man, unforgiving, and more like a boss than a parent. He could choose anger, and either lose Dean forever or destroy the family by stealing him away.

Or he could let go of everything he remembered about John and just accept. It wouldn’t be over, wouldn’t solve every problem he had with the man, but it’d be a cessation of hostilities. It’d build neutral ground, maybe enough to get them through all of this and start something else.

John knew it. He knew how much was riding on the two of them, in different ways. And he had to know how much this would mean to Dean.

Dean, who was standing there, every line in his body filled with tension. He was making significant eyes at his father, probably gritting his teeth to keep from telling John out loud that now was not the time. But Xander had realised a long time ago how much Dean loved his father, how it wasn’t exactly healthy but it’d been built in to who Dean was too deeply to ever remove. Fighting it would probably tear Dean apart.

And right now, just the thought of staying angry with John made him tired. If Xander took what he was being offered, if he forgave John...well, it was one thing to let go of, wasn’t it? One less thing to think about. And fuck, he could use a few less things to think about.

“Okay,” he said simply. “Thanks.”

A surprised, grateful smile appeared on John’s face, and just a little of the weight lifted off of Xander’s shoulders.

One less thing to think about.

“Okay,” John replied, still smiling, and it suddenly occurred to Xander that John was trying. He wanted to fix things just as badly as Dean. While Xander was watching, John glanced over at his son, and the warmth in his eyes suddenly gave Xander some idea why Dean adored the man. He was scary as hell, but anyone could see the way he loved his kids.

Irrationally, Xander wanted to roll his eyes, and maybe laugh a little hysterically. God, the Winchesters and their determination to fix things. He didn’t have the heart to tell them he was beyond fixing.

Instead of breaking into hysterical giggles, Xander concentrated on keeping his panic under control, crossing his arms and hoping he wouldn’t be expected to say anything else. Dean was watching him – always watching him – and under the scrutiny, Xander managed to keep a hold of himself, barely. His hands were shaking, and he felt a little like the absence of weight would untether him from the ground. But he rode it out and focused on breathing, and the tension gradually seeped out of him.

One thing at a time, he reminded himself, then mentally added, _please let the rest of it happen tomorrow_.

“You alright? You want to crash for a while?” Dean asked, frowning and concerned.

Xander grimaced. “No, I couldn’t sleep. I’m fine.” Dean looked sceptical, but after a last considering look, he seemed to let it go.

There was a moment of awkward silence, and Xander glanced around, looking desperately for some kind of distraction. His eyes lit on the empty bookshelves, and he said, relieved, “So, hey, we should probably do some reading.”

“Um,” Sam said, bewildered. “You don’t have any books.”

Xander was already heading to the bookshelves, and ignored him in favour trying to remember exactly how high it was. He reached around the side of the right-hand bookcase, feeling for the indentation in the plaster. Tongue between his teeth, he felt up the wall until he found it, and triggered the spring mechanism. He stepped back quickly as both bookcases, one on either side of the walkway, simultaneously slid three feet further away from each other.

Instead of revealing three feet of blank wall on either side of the entrance to the hall, there were two depressions where there should have been plaster. On the right, closer to the TV, was a set of shelves filled with the exactly kind of heavy old books Xander sometimes still didn’t want to believe he had in his life.

The other side held a miniature armoury. And this was no artful display of fanned weapons, pegged up to make a nice visual. Quantity and lack of space meant that the swords and longer blades were stored vertically, standing in a narrow rack, and every inch of the wall above was covered, with knives of every possible size, two crossbows, an axe and a couple of shotguns. There was also a bucket of stakes shoved in on top of a small drum of holy water that barely fit between the end of the sword rack and the edge of the opening.

“Whoa,” Dean managed.

Distractions. It was perfect, and Xander felt another tiny piece of stress melt away. They could read through all of his books looking for the demon, and he wouldn’t have to think about anything else. Research was far from his favourite activity, but the demon out to kill him was currently the least of his problems, and therefore the preferable option.

He looked critically at the shelves, trying to work out which books were the most likely candidates, and then which of those were written in languages he could actually read.

“Wow, can I...” Sam said, reaching past Xander.

“Not those ones,” Xander said sharply. “Not the top shelf,” he added, once Sam had frozen. “They’re cursed, and you need to do a couple of different rituals before you can read them. Stick with the lower shelves until I can get some more angelica root.”

Sam stared nervously up at the top shelf as if he expected the books to leap off and attack him.

“Dude, why the hell do you have them in your apartment?” Dean asked, apparently alarmed at the thought of cursed literature.

Xander shrugged, leaning in to look at the writing on the spine of one fat, black book. Was that Latin? “Better than keeping them at the house.”

“What house?” Dean asked, but Xander ignored the question. Explaining the house would mean explaining the thirty slayers that lived there, and he didn’t feel up to that particular conversation. He glanced over at John, and found him looking over the weapons. He was pretending to be critical but Xander could see the gleam of weapons-lust.

“None of those are cursed,” he offered, and John replied with a careful nod. Xander wondered briefly if it was a good idea to let John handle anything with a sharp edge yet, but a few likely-looking books caught his eyes, and he pulled them off the shelf.

“Seriously, though, did you build this?” Dean asked, waving an arm at the arrangement.

“No, it was here when I moved in,” Xander said with a wry smile. Faith had told him they’d looked at a couple of different apartments in Cleveland, and most of them had had added features like this. Some of the others had sounded...interesting.

He picked out a couple more books and took them over to the table, leaving the Winchesters exploring the shelves. Sam had already pulled several books out off the lower shelves and was making interested noises over them.

Xander sat with his back to the kitchen, keeping one eye on the top shelves in case Sam got too excited and forgot. He flipped open a book and started skimming, ignoring the heaviness in the back of his mind. He just had to get through tonight. It’d all look better in the light of day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from a song by the Smashing Pumpkins.


	14. Until It Sleeps

Three hours later, they’d gone through three large pizzas, soda, almost all of Alex’s large stash of coffee, and every book in the house. All of the ones in English, anyway. Dean thought Alex might have moved on to...Sumerian, or something. But the symbols were crazy-looking, and if he couldn’t read it, he didn’t really want to know.

“Oh, hey,” Sam exclaimed suddenly, breaking the fug of silence that had settled over the table.

Dean’s head jerked up – he’d almost been asleep, he realised – and he asked, “What? Did you find something?”

Sam looked up, apparently surprised to find all their eyes on him. “Um...no. Sorry,” he said awkwardly. “I didn’t find anything about the demon, just... I was on this demon database, and they had a link to a page about Sunnydale.”

“Yeah?” Dean replied, interested. Then he shot a worried glance at Alex. Alex had been going to tell him, but that didn’t mean he’d be happy talking about it with John and Sam.

There was a touch of wariness in the way Alex was watching Sam. Wariness, but mostly his expression was back to that deliberate blankness that Dean was starting to hate.

Sam turned back to the laptop, peering at the screen. “Yeah, it’s all these, like, conspiracy theories about what really went down. It’s just so weird.”

Sam paused, and Dean tried to decide whether he should stop this, whether he _could_ stop this. Was there any way to shut Sam up without making it incredibly obvious he was doing it? Would Alex even appreciate the defence? Or would Dean get called ‘overprotective’ again?

He shot another nervous glance at Alex, but it told him nothing. Alex just looked even more expressionless than before, and he wasn’t giving Dean any cues.

Sam went on, oblivious to Dean’s worry, an intrigued tone in his voice. “And some of them are crazy. One guy thinks the whole town was sucked up into a spaceship shaped like a pyramid,” he said, frowning at the screen.

This provoked a snort from the other end of the table. “Well, I can tell you _that_ didn’t happen. Someone’s been watching a little too much Sci Fi channel,” Alex said, sounding only slightly relieved.

Dean relaxed for all of ten seconds, before Sam asked curiously, “What did happen?”

Dean’s stomach twisted. For a second, the lack of expression on Alex’s face cracked, and was replaced with something horribly vulnerable. Gritting his teeth, Dean was just about to tell Alex it didn’t matter, that they didn’t need to know, that the horror stories could wait until after, or never, when John spoke, hesitant and quiet.

“They said it was something below, something hungry,” he said.

It was like he’d flipped a switch. Alex closed down visibly. He froze, his face blanked out, and his eyes went thousand-yard like he wasn’t looking at the world around him anymore. Dean could see the darkness clear in his eyes, all of the haunted shadows he’d been pretending weren’t there, and he’d never wanted to punch his father in the face more than he did now.

But Alex actually answered. His voice was soft, like he’d forgotten people were listening, and at the same time it almost sounded like he was correcting John. “From beneath you, it devours.”

Dean felt a chill go down his spine. He knew, with complete certainty, that nothing good could come of this conversation, that this wasn’t something he wanted to know. But it felt like watching a car crash, like he couldn’t react fast enough to stop it.

“What does that mean?” John asked softly.

Xander didn’t respond, but he dropped his eyes suddenly, to his hands where they rested in his lap. His eyes kept flickering from side to side, and the total lack of response frightened Dean more than just about anything.

“Why don’t you want to tell us?” John’s voice was still soft, and he sounded careful, like if Alex said no, John would accept it, and wouldn’t ask again.

Alex paused visibly, but the question seemed to snap him out of it a little. “Because you don’t want to know, John, not really.”

If it’d been bitter, or angry, Dean would have known how to react. But Alex raised his head to look at John and his expression was so goddamn bleak. “Once you know, you can’t ever not know.”

John was about to say something else when Alex dropped his eyes again and added, with a chuckle that was mostly air, “And because I don’t freakin’ want to talk about it.” He said it like it should have been obvious, and Dean suddenly snapped out of whatever headspace had him stuck _watching_.

“You don’t have to,” he said angrily, because it was obvious. With the pressure Alex was obviously under, with the shaky grip he seemed to have on it all, this was _not_ the time to question him. “Seriously, he doesn’t have to talk about it,” he said to John and Sam.

And maybe he’d end up in the overprotective doghouse again, but fuck it. They had no right to ask this.

John was just starting to look like he regretted the question, like he’d remembered the shaky ground they were all still on, when Alex looked up, looked straight at Dean.

It was like he was looking for something, or maybe asking a question. And Dean had no idea what that question was, but he met Alex’s eyes, as unafraid as possible, letting all his concern show on his face. He felt a strong jolt of _not leaving_ in his chest. Alex could do whatever he wanted, tell them, not tell them, whatever. Dean wasn’t going anywhere.

And if he decided to tell them whatever it was, Dean was worried, but determined to be strong enough to handle it.

Alex dropped his eyes and stared at the table, clearly thinking. As Dean watched his face, he saw resignation creep in over Alex’s expression, but it was mixed in with so much darkness and...and _sadness_ , Dean was sure that was sadness. It was painful to look at.

“I was going to tell you anyway, right?” Xander said, voice low, without looking up.

“You don’t have to,” Dean said again, a dull ache taking over the space in his chest. He wanted to know, wanted to share the burden if Alex wanted to tell him, but seeing Alex hurt like this...

Alex nodded, sighed deeply, and didn’t look up when he started to speak.

“Last year...” he began, then stopped. Dean could almost see his mind ticking over, deciding what to say.

“Last year, girls all over the world started turning up dead. Murdered. Sometimes their guardians were killed, too. The guardians were members of the Watcher’s Council, and the girls...the girls were potential slayers.”

He paused long enough for Sam to interject, “What do you mean, potential slayers?”

“When the slayer dies, another slayer is called,” he said. “A potential slayer is any girl who could be called. The Watcher’s Council finds them, trains them, teaches them about demons and vampires. Once they’re called, they send them out to fight.” Another pause. “Giles is Buffy’s Watcher.”

Dean could hear the capital letters that time.

Leaving Sam to mull that over, Alex went on. “The plan was to wipe out the slayer line. Kill all the potentials, then kill Faith and Buffy, and then you have no more slayers. And just inside the Hellmouth...” He paused again, cleared his throat. “Just inside the Hellmouth, there was an army of prehistoric vampires, waiting to be let out. They were faster and stronger than regular vamps, and way harder to kill.”

“Kill off all the slayers, then set the uber-vamps free, and you’ve got...well, we didn’t really want to think about what was going to happen then.”

“Something hungry,” John muttered.

“Jesus,” Sam said softly. “What did you do?”

“The potentials – potential slayers – that were still alive had been coming to Sunnydale. They thought they’d be safe there, God knows why. And we...we started to train them. We turned them into an army. In the end, we took them down into the Hellmouth to fight.”

There was a horrified pause around the table that Alex seemed oblivious to, because he added, “That’s when Willow took control of the slayer’s power, and turned all the potential slayers into real slayers.”

“What?” John’s voice sounded strangled.

“She turned potentials all over the world into real slayers. There isn’t just one slayer anymore. There’s hundreds,” Xander replied honestly, meeting John’s astonished gaze again.

“Wow,” Sam said. Then, with a small grin, he added, “That’s so cool. Hundreds?” Then he frowned. “Did the spell blow up the town?”

“Nope, that was Spike,” Alex said, shaking his head. He was about as relaxed as anyone could be under questioning, but Dean was still waiting for it all to go wrong, still waiting for the question that would trigger whatever was responsible for the darkness in Alex’s eyes. Not that what Alex was talking about wasn’t bad enough, but Dean knew there was something more.

“Spike had this amulet thing,” Alex went on dismissively, flicking his hand around a bit in a nervous gesture. “I don’t know, I was never clear on what it did or where it came from. When we went down into the Hellmouth, it activated, and burned up all the uber-vamps. Burned up Spike, too,” he added, after a pause.

There was a trace of sadness there, and Sam reacted. “I’m sorry.”

“Wait, is this Spike as in...” John interjected with a raised eyebrow.

“I know, right?” Xander replied, shooting raised eyebrow at John, then at Dean. “The fact that he even got a soul still weirds me out.”

It was Dean’s turn to raise his eyebrows. “Spike got a _soul_?”

Alex rolled his eyes. “Don’t even ask. It’s so...” He shook his head and waved his hand around again.

Sam was looking between them, bewildered. “I’m missing something, right?”

“Spike’s a vampire,” Dean said. “And an asshole,” he added under his breath.

“Oh,” Sam said, surprised.

“He came through in the end, though, I guess,” Alex said quietly, switching from slightly amused to troubled in between breaths.

Sam lapsed into silence, eyes a little wide as he tried to process the new information, and John huffed in agreement with Xander. Silence fell, and Xander didn’t continue.

But dread built up in Dean’s stomach again, and before he could stop himself, he blurted out, “Why wouldn’t you want to tell us that?”

He regretted it as soon as he said it. This was it, this was the trigger. It had to be. His throat was clenched tight, and he was a little unable to believe _he_ was the one asking the question.

But at that moment, the need to know had won out over his fear. He knew things had changed, that the past year had changed Alex almost beyond recognition in some ways. How could Dean help, how could he know where they stood and what to say, if he didn’t understand what had happened?

And maybe it was projection, wishful thinking, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that some part of Alex needed to confess.

“What else happened?” he added softly. The world had narrowed to just the two of them, and they’d always been this for each other, always been able to confess sins and talk about the stuff no-one else seemed to understand. They’d always been able to tell each other the worst things without being afraid. _You can tell me anything, you know that_ , Dean wanted to say, but he couldn’t quite get the words out.

Alex stared back at him, and that heartbreaking vulnerability was back in his eyes. “It was...the thing that started it all,” he said, and it sounded like the words were hard to get out. “What put the whole plan into motion...it was the First.”

He didn’t go on, and it looked like the words had caught in his throat. “The First what?” Dean prompted, feeling breathless. That pit of coldness was twisting in his stomach again, but he reminded himself that he’d been pretending to be strong.

“The First Evil,” Alex said, after another weighted pause. “The source, the beginning, the... _embodiment_ , of every last drop of evil. It’s older than humans and demons, older than...maybe older than the entire world. And it’s the thing that all the evil in the world feeds off. It was...” He broke off, snapping his mouth shut.

For a moment, Dean didn’t believe him. The impossibility of it caught him, made his ears ring. But as he took in the completely destroyed look on Xander’s face, he knew it had to be true.

The origin of evil. The source, the first of all of it... Jesus Christ, it didn’t sound real. How could such a thing even exist?

Dean couldn’t quite breathe properly, and had to grip the table for support as the implications, the potential horror, started running through his mind. Alex had his eyes down again, staring fixedly at his hands, or maybe the floor, and Dean couldn’t tear his eyes away. He couldn’t bring himself to look away from Alex in case he disappeared, ripped away or buried by the _hugeness_ of what he’d just described.

He didn’t want to risk a glance at John or Sam, anyway, because he didn’t want them to see how truly shocked he was. God, he should have waited to ask Alex when they were alone.

After another moment of vertigo, Alex raised his head, and a bit more of his defensive blankness was back in place. He looked at Dean carefully, and Dean’s tailspin must have been showing, because Alex suggested quietly, “Try not to think about it.”

Like Dean was the one at risk of breaking into pieces. Like Dean was the one who’d had to face the greatest evil known to the universe. “Try not to think about it? Are you kidding?” Dean replied, finding his voice. “I just can’t believe...The _First Evil_? I...and it was _in Sunnydale with you_?”

It probably wasn’t the best time for an outburst, because Alex didn’t answer, just looked at him steadily. It felt like he was still measuring Dean’s ability to deal, like he could just _take it back_ if Dean wasn’t strong enough to handle it.

And with that thought, Dean took a deep breath and pressed ruthlessly down on the panic inside him. He was pretending to be strong enough, he had to be strong enough. He had to be worthy of Alex’s trust, he had to be okay with _knowing_ this.

Alex needed him to know. So he didn’t have a choice. Panicking about it wasn’t going to fucking help him at all. Dean spent a few seconds trying to force the panic out of his mind.

“But you stopped it,” Sam interjected, jolting Dean and Alex out of their mutual staring. “You wouldn’t be sitting here if it was still...How did you kill it?” he went on firmly, wide eyes fixed on Alex.

With a bitter half-smile, Alex said, “It’s a non-corporeal personification, Sam, we didn’t actually kill it. We couldn’t,” he admitted, then sighed. “The thing is...it’s always there, it’s everywhere. But it can’t usually manifest. Usually it just...influences people, I think.”

He swallowed heavily, and there was a tightness around his eyes. He seemed to be searching for the right words again.

“There was...an imbalance,” Alex finally said. “And when the imbalance got bad enough, the First was able to manifest and start up this plan to wipe out the slayers and release the Turok Han. We corrected the imbalance, and it had to go back to wherever it came from. And Spike took out the Turok Han, and that explosion was what took out the town.”

Another pause, longer this time, while they digested this. Or tried to. Dean let himself have another split-second of panic, because a non-corporeal personification of absolute evil? _What the fuck_.

Then Sam cleared his throat and opened his goddamn mouth again. “What...” he began haltingly. “Did you see it? What...what did it look like?”

He looked like he didn’t really want to know the answer. And Dean could have cursed him for asking the question in the first place, because Alex looked down again and started twisting his hands under the table, twisting one hand around the wrist of the other.

Dean couldn’t tell; all his attention was on Alex’s face, and the heartbreaking look Dean could just barely see in his eyes.

“It looked like dead people,” he eventually said, voice quiet and pain-filled. “Anyone you knew, anyone...anyone who could really fuck with your head. That was what it looked like.”

He stopped talking, and didn’t say another word as he scrubbed his hands through his hair and got up and left the table.

Dean stayed where he was, staring at Alex’s empty seat. He was peripherally aware that Alex had retreated into the kitchen and was apparently starting another pot of coffee. He was peripherally aware that he should do something, say something. But he felt frozen, shocked.

The First Evil. And it’d looked like dead people. Dead friends, dead loved ones... Jesus.

“Jesus,” John said, reading his goddamn mind. Him and Sam looked just as shocked, just as horrified.

And worst of all was that Alex had been _alone_ in the middle of all of that.

He’d gone through all of that _horror_ , and Dean hadn’t been there. Hadn’t been by Alex’s side like he should have been, or even dropping by whenever he was close. Worse, he’d left Alex thinking he didn’t _care_ , that he’d _given up on them_...

Alex had said he loved him, and Dean had run. Abandoned him to the Hellmouth, and the _First fucking Evil_ , when all along he should have...God, he should have stayed. He didn’t doubt Alex could defend himself, but Dean could’ve...he should’ve done _anything_ to help.

Instead, he’d run.

Shame burned through him, making him sick to his stomach, making him wonder why Alex hadn’t loaded up a shotgun the second he’d seen Dean’s face. And _God_ , all of this felt like more of a crime than anything he’d ever done.

He’d left. He’d left Alex alone in the dark, and he didn’t deserve to be forgiven for it.

And right now, Alex was in the kitchen. Alone _again_.

The thought unfroze him, and he was up and moving before he was even really aware of it. He made it to the kitchen, but stopped just short of throwing his arms around Alex.

He wanted to, wanted to offer whatever inadequate comfort he could. But he really didn’t think he had the right.

Alex was facing the counter, fiddling with the coffee machine. He didn’t react to Dean’s presence, but he had to know he was there. Dean hesitated, then edged closer. His instincts were competing, telling him not to touch at the same time as they screamed at him to help.

Shaking, he reached out and rested a hand on one tense shoulder blade. He had to, instincts aside, because above everything else, he didn’t ever want Alex to think he didn’t care again.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he whispered hoarsely.

The coffee bag spilled a little as it dropped to the counter, and Alex froze under the light touch. “You didn’t know,” he said, voice strangled and every muscle in his body almost vibrating with tension. But he stayed still as a statue, and didn’t turn around.

“I should have been there,” Dean said desperately. “I never should have said...”

“Shut up,” Alex hissed, twisting around to face Dean with a glare. “It doesn’t _help_ , that you regret it, alright?”

“But I...” Dean replied, ready to apologise again. He stopped when Alex threw a hand up to silence him, watched when Alex paced a few steps away, watched him stop and drop his head into his hands again for a moment, running his hands through his hair angrily. His back muscles were tense, almost shaking with strain.

“Just...just stop asking me about it. No more questions,” he ordered desperately, turning back to face Dean. And Dean realised there was a look in his eyes like he was holding on by the slimmest thread, like his goddamn _sanity_ was on the line if he had to talk about it again.

And wouldn’t it be? Seeing what Alex had seen... Dean had already realised that there was something broken and exhausted in Alex, but it must go so _deep_.

“No more questions,” he promised quickly, hoping frantically that this hadn’t been the straw to break Alex’s back, hoping their fucking interrogation – and it was an interrogation, and God, they’d had no fucking _right_ – hadn’t damaged him. Hadn’t hurt him too badly. “No more, I swear. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.”

“Sorry doesn’t help,” Alex repeated, whispering and watching Dean with hurt eyes, like he was pleading with him to understand.

And Dean nodded, swallowed down the unwanted apology that rose in his throat, his own eyes pricking with tears. God, he was sorry, he was so sorry.

But if Alex said it didn’t help, it didn’t help.

The tension stretched between them, and just as Dean was gathering himself to say something else, the shrill ring of the phone sounded, snapping through the silence like a whip.

Dean jumped a mile, and Alex looked equally unsettled. He glared at it balefully, then looked back at Dean warily.

Heart in his throat, Dean gestured miserably. Their discussion – if you could call it that – was done. Alex went to answer the phone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from a song by Metallica.


	15. Turnin' On The Screw

Dean had been opening his mouth to speak when the phone cut him off. Xander was startled by the sound, and the extra shock wasn’t really something he needed. Adrenalin was already pumping through him, anger and hurt fuelled by desperate, sick-making fear. They’d come so goddamn _close_ to finding out about him, he’d come so close to _telling_ them – Dean had come so goddamn close to _asking_.

And Dean had _apologised_ , and it was too much to take. Xander’s hands were fucking _shaking_. He felt like he’d been inches from another goddamn nervous breakdown, like one more word and he’d _crack_.

He took a few deep breaths and watched Dean carefully, waiting for him to say something. But Dean seemed resigned, and waved him away to the phone. He looked unhappy and it made Xander ache, but he seriously couldn’t take another second.

A deep breath, and Xander crossed the room. He swallowed hard, allowing a new kind of dread to settle through him, because only a handful of people would call him this late at night and the odds of bad news were much, much too high.

“Harris,” he said roughly.

“Xander,” came Giles’ voice down the line, and Xander felt a rush of uncomplicated relief so strong his hands started shaking again.

Clearing his throat so it wouldn’t show in his voice, he said, “Giles! Hey. It’s been a while.”

“Er, has it? I spoke to you two days ago,” Giles said hesitantly, sounding a little befuddled.

“Uh, right.” Xander ran a hand through his hair and felt aftershocks of adrenalin running through him. He tried to focus on the phone, but his head was spinning.

He remembered the conversation, a bit. Unremarkable, brief, and he might have offered to look over some books. “Sorry, there’s been a lot going on. Zombies and all,” he added, grasping for excuses.

He closed his eyes for a second, willing the panic and stress to diffuse. But Sam and John were watching him from the table, and Dean nearby in the kitchen, and he felt surrounded.

After a moment of inattention, Giles’ voice came down the line, sounding far away. “Xander? Are you still there?”

“Sure,” Xander managed. “What’s up?” His voice was still too ragged, and sudden paranoia had him believing anyone who heard it could tell, would know _everything_. He’d been up and down too many times tonight, and too many parts of him had been exposed. He couldn’t help but feel a little threadbare, like what little was left of him was getting worn out.

And crap, he probably sounded really weird, and Giles would be concerned, but there were only so many people he could hide from at once. It didn’t help that Giles’ voice was warm and familiar, and made Xander want his friends with a strength that almost undid him.

Giles paused. “Are you sure—”

Xander interrupted, before Giles could break him down with sympathy. “Really, it’s fine. What’s going on?” He concentrated on the phone call, hoping for news that would distract him from everything.

“I have a list of books for you to go through, if you have the time, volumes you should have in your apartment already. I need you to check for anything that sounds like the demon that attacked you.”

“Okay. Okay, let me get a pen,” Xander replied. But he didn’t move for a second, and just stood with his eyes closed. He needed to breathe. He needed to relax, he needed to not think about it all. He couldn’t take any more, not tonight.

But what Giles was asking him to do would be easy. Focus on the demon.

He turned towards the table, about to look for something to write on. But Dean had come past him, and was already there, handing him a notepad and pencil. Xander half-smiled vaguely in his direction, but most of his attention was deliberately still focused on Giles. Solid, predictable Giles, who just wanted him to read books and wasn’t trying to fix him or apologise or ask questions or make him make decisions or _anything_.

Hooking the phone between his cheek and shoulder and listening carefully, Xander copied out a list. Looking it over, he said, “I’ve already been reading tonight, and there’s nothing in the first four you have here.”

“Really?” Giles sounded disappointed. “Oh. Well, I suppose you should focus on the Latin and Greek texts, then.”

“Yeah, I was saving them for tomorrow,” Xander replied, only a trace of a grimace in his tone. He’d always had problems with Greek.

“They should all have indexes and such, so hopefully it won’t take too long. And quite a few have images, so you could use those to find similarities to the demon you saw,” Giles said helpfully. He paused for a moment, then said, “Actually, do you mind looking at one in particular while I’ve got you on the phone? It would be good to knock this one candidate out of the running, as it were.”

“Sure, no problem,” Xander said easily. Look at the pictures. He could do that. “Which particular mystical volume am I looking for?”

“It should be a large black book with a pentagram on the cover but no title,” Giles directed. “The spine should have silver symbols etched into it, in a circle. Its text is Latin, and I believe it may have one of those yellow notes stuck in, on a page about half-way through.”

“Okay, gotcha,” Xander replied, not about to ask how Giles remembered that there was a post-it in a book he’d sent here over a month earlier. “Hang on a second while I go get it.”

The cord on the phone stretched easily to the dining table, and Xander set the receiver down and tossed the list carelessly on top of John’s papers. The Winchesters were giving him intrigued looks – intrigue mixed with worry, he had to admit, especially Dean – but Xander ignored them. He didn’t care if they were worried, he didn’t want to think about the past anymore tonight.

He headed over to the bookcase. All the books on the table were English and Ancient Sumerian, so if he was looking for Latin...

“What’d he say?” John asked hesitantly.

“He just wants me to take a look at a book,” Xander replied carelessly.

It didn’t take long to find – the silver circle on the spine was distinctive amongst the few books that remained on the shelves now that Xander and Sam had picked them over. There was a post-it, too, exactly like Giles had said.

He laid the book on the table and picked up the phone. “Hey. I think I’ve found it.”

“Turn to the page with the yellow note, and tell me what’s on it,” Giles instructed, getting down to business.

Xander stuck his fingers in at the post-it and heaved the book open...to a picture of the most disgusting thing he’d ever seen.

“Oh jeez, that thing with the horns,” he blurted out, unable to keep the dismay in check. “I _ruined_ my favourite axe in that fight, you know.”

Dean, come edged close to him at the table, made a startled noise and leaned in to take a closer look at the book. “You actually fought that?” he stage-whispered, horrified, and Xander glanced his way but kept his attention on Giles’ voice.

“Yes, well, never mind that now. You need to go a few pages further, and take a look at an engraving, or a reproduction of an engraving, rather. It should cover an entire page.”

Xander flipped the pages cautiously, until he came to a full-page picture. He leaned closer to study the demon in question. It had rough-looking skin, and a spiked ruff of hair that seemed to travel down its spine. In the engraving, its mouth was curved in a malicious, fang-filled grin.

“I understand that it appeared human when it attacked you, but this demon is capable of shape-shifting,” Giles said. “The image you see here is as it appears in its natural form, as it were, but there are one or two subtle features that carry over when it changes, and we believe these would give it away if you know what to look for. If it was this demon, it should have had the markings across its forehead. I don’t suppose you saw them?”

“Nope, didn’t see any marks,” Xander said grimly, eyeing the pattern that stretched between the creature’s horns.

Giles sighed. “No, I did think you would have mentioned it. The eyes of this creature are supposedly ‘yellow as the stinking bile of hellish torment’, though, even when it shape-shifts, so I wanted you to have a look.”

“Bile? Gross,” Xander grimaced. He took another look at the picture, tilting his head as he looked at the eyes. They were slitted, rimmed with black, and had squiggly lines around them that he could only assume represented light, like the eyes glowed. “No,” he finally decided. “The yellow eyes I saw were sort of cracked and swirly looking, not slitted like this.”

“That’s interesting,” Giles said, and Xander could practically hear him perk up, mind racing with new information.

Xander glanced up to find John and Sam had joined Dean, and he slid the book towards them. “What do you think? The eyes aren’t right, are they?” Business was business, and a second opinion was probably a good idea.

They looked, and Dean was just shaking his head when Giles said sharply, “Who are you talking to?”

“Dean, John and Sam Winchester,” Xander replied absently, glancing down at the book again. He flipped a couple of pages, glancing critically over the other images. “Should I be looking at anyone else in this book?”

“No, forget the book. Are you telling me they’re all there, in the room with you?” Giles sounded surprised, and strangely tense.

Xander frowned. “Yeah?”

“What the bloody hell—“ He broke off suddenly. “You’re on the landline, aren’t you? And they’re standing right there. I’m calling you back on your cellphone,” he said firmly, and hung up.

Xander stared at the receiver for a second, surprised.

“What’s wrong?” Dean asked.

“I don’t know,” Xander replied, baffled. “He’s gonna call me back on my cell.”

As if on cue, the closet by the door started ringing. Feeling a bit bewildered, Xander hung up the phone and headed for the closet. He had to dig through several coats to find the one he was after, and when he finally located the one the ringing was coming from...

“Ew, I thought I threw this away,” he said, grimacing. The coat was crusted in dried demon goo, and had little rips all over the front where a Siitee demon had gotten a little too friendly. He hadn’t been injured, but it’d been really gross.

He pulled his phone from the pocket and dumped the coat on the floor by the door. He made a mental note to throw the thing in the trash as soon as possible, briefly grateful that Siitee demon blood didn’t actually smell.

“Giles?” he said, answering the phone. “Sorry, it took me a minute to find the phone. It was in that coat I wore the other day, to that thing in at the Y? No idea why I still have it, it’s covered in...something. God, why are demons so gross?” he asked, frowning.

“Because they’re demons, Xander,” Giles replied impatiently. “Now go somewhere they can’t hear you. I want to talk to you privately.”

“They?” Xander frowned fuzzily. There were no Siitee demons here, they’d killed them all right before they’d gone after the zombies.

“The Winchesters,” Giles said, and it sounded like he was talking through clenched teeth. “I’m assuming they’ll let you leave the room?” he added icily.

“Of course they will,” Xander replied, surprised. Then with breathtaking suddenness, the worry he’d been oblivious to for the past few minutes sank in. Worried. Giles was worried.

One night just after they’d left Sunnydale, just before Xander went to Africa, he’d had to get drunk, had to talk. And Giles had been there for it. He now knew...most. Not all, but most, which, Xander realised, was probably why he was worried.

Scratch that, it was more than worried. Giles sounded like the last time he went Ripper on someone.

And Xander was suddenly faced with the frightening mental image of Giles facing down John over a table piled with books, of the fighting and almighty smackdown that would happen if – when – Giles lost his temper and told the Winchesters to get lost because they could handle the demon without their help.

With the way things had been going so far, the odds were far better than usual that he’d end up trying to convince Giles not to kill someone. God. Xander was up to his neck in drama as it was, the past had been snapping at his heels all night, he had no idea what he was doing, and the _last_ thing he needed was Giles making a fuss. He'd wanted _less_ to worry about, not more.

Shaking his head and rubbing a hand over one eye, Xander mumbled, “That’s...they’re not... You shouldn’t be worrying about this.” He needed to convince Giles he could handle this on his own. But how the hell could he do that? He could barely convince himself.

He glanced in Dean’s general direction and decided that, for a start, it’d be better to have this conversation without an audience. He didn’t bother to look over again – they’d figure it out – but took the phone and headed to the bedroom, closing the door behind him.

“What do you mean, I shouldn’t be worrying about this? You tell me they’re all bloody there with you in the bloody apartment, and I shouldn’t worry?” Giles was saying indignantly in his ear.

Xander hadn’t heard Giles get this het up about something in ages. If it wasn’t about him, it’d probably be funny.

“It’s okay, Giles. They’re...they’re here to help out,” he tried, figuring it was the least complicated way to describe what the Winchesters were doing.

“There to—“ Giles repeated, then broke off with a frustrated noise. “Xander, what the hell is _he_ doing there? How on earth can you be alright with him being anywhere near you?”

There was no need for Giles to clarify who ‘he’ was.

And Xander reeled under the emotional bomb of Giles’ question. Everything suddenly came welling up inside him; what he wanted, what he was afraid of, how goddamn angry it made him, and the way he was fucking _drowning_ in it all.

He wasn’t alright with Dean being near him. Things had been totally not alright so far. Maybe they’d become more alright if everyone stopped reminding him of stuff and _asking him questions_...

Xander breathed deep and paced across the room, reeling in the anger. Abruptly he realised Giles was waiting. What was the question again?

“It’s...I’m doing okay with it,” he lied, hoping the roughness in his voice wasn’t too obvious. “Dean, he...he turned up yesterday morning,” he began, then paused to mentally edit out a few things. Giles didn’t need to know about the kitchen. “He drove here, Giles. He came out of the coma, and as soon as he could walk properly, he drove here. He thought I died when Sunnydale fell, and he wanted...”

Xander broke off, a little surprised by the tightness of his throat, how close he felt to tears. “He said sorry,” he managed, then added slowly, “It’s complicated, but there are reasons why he did what he did. And...I can understand some of them, I guess.”

And that was a totally inadequate description of his reaction to Dean. Everything he was saying was a complete understatement of how fucking _difficult_ the whole night had been. Even now, Xander was still breathing carefully, still feeling tension in the back of his neck, leftover from the Winchesters’ little interrogation. They’d been asking him the _worst_ questions. God.

“ _Understand_?” Giles was saying, oblivious to Xander’s internal monologue, and he sounded furious. “Xander, you shouldn’t have to understand. He _left_ you.”

That tweaked on the very last nerve Xander had, and he gritted his teeth. “I know that,” he ground out.

“If they’ve ambushed you in your apartment,” Giles began coldly.

“No-one’s ambushed me,” Xander snapped, even though it was true. For an inexplicable second he wanted to rage against Giles, wanted to rage against the concern. All of it was just more _questions_. “I’m perfectly capable of throwing them all out if I want.”

Giles was silent, and Xander took another deep breath, reminding himself that if he freaked out, Giles was _more_ likely to interfere, not less. He had to calm the fuck down and at least fake some emotional stability. He had to make all of this sound like something he could handle, like something that wasn’t driving over the fucking edge.

Using every last scrap of willpower he had, Xander reigned himself in. “Seriously, it’s fine,” he added, when he trusted himself to speak again. He cleared his throat and concentrated on sounding steady and sane. “I’m taking it all one step at a time, and it’s all...it’s all stressful, but...” Another deep breath. And ‘stressful’ was another complete understatement.

He cleared his throat and went on. “Look, they’re all here to take care of the demon, and I figured that was the most important thing at the moment, you know? If we get that taken care of, it’ll... I don’t know what to do about Dean, yet, but...I want to think about it. I just need some time to work it out.”

And that was practically babble, but hell, it probably made him sound more like himself than anything else. It’d sounded clear and sane, as well, reasonable, and maybe even a little like a good plan. Xander was surprised at himself.

“Honestly, Xander—“ Giles said with a sigh, then fell silent. Xander waited.

When Giles spoke again, he sounded both reassured and irritated. Which was classic Giles, really, and Xander immediately felt some of the tightness in his spine relax. “Well, whatever you think is best. Although, one could ask why you didn’t just take a baseball bat to his head?”

It sounded like such a polite suggestion, and Xander smiled. “I punched him in the face when he first got here. Does that help?” he replied, equally polite.

“Yes,” Giles said firmly, and Xander actually managed a laugh.

“But there are a few things you should know,” he went on, bracing himself, and quickly outlined Dean’s story. He was barely able to get the words out, but it’d occurred to him that some of it could be useful for the demon research, so he relayed it despite the twisting in his gut.

“My word,” Giles breathed, sighing. Xander could almost hear the gears turning as he processed it all.

“Yeah. I don’t know how much help it’ll be, narrowing down which demon it was.” He paused rubbing his eyes. Then he added quietly, “And even though I think he’s an asshole for doing it...it was his mom, Giles. And Sam’s girlfriend. It doesn’t really make it better, but...I just...I get it, you know?”

Xander hadn’t meant to admit that. Just a second ago, he hadn’t wanted to involve Giles, hadn’t wanted to talk to anyone about it at all. But blackness was tugging at his heels again, and he had to tell someone. He had to remind himself why he was still there. Why Dean was still there.

Giles was silent for a moment, and finally sighed, “Yes. Yes, I see. I still think you might consider the baseball bat, but I suppose I can see why you’d allow him to stay while you think it over.”

Xander smiled. Giles sounded so _grudging_. “I’m not so much ‘allowing him to stay’ as he’s refusing to leave unless I physically throw him out, so I’ll keep the baseball bat idea in play, just in case.”

“What do you mean, he’s refusing to leave?”

Giles’ re-outraged voice reminded Xander that he’d been trying to downplay the situation. Cursing himself, he said, “Not in a bad way. He’s just...he wants to stay until I’m safe from the demon, that’s all. And after that...he’s staying, as long as I want him to. He’s promised.”

“Do you believe him?” came the soft, serious question.

It was almost too much. Xander collapsed to sit on the bed and exhaled shakily, throat tightening yet again. Again, he found himself actually answering Giles’ question.

“I don’t know. I think...I think I want to believe him? God, it’s so fucking pathetic, though,” he added in a rush. “I should be furious, right? I should be throwing him out, or kicking his ass, but ever since he came back...” He trailed off, not sure how to continue.

“You’re not pathetic, Xander,” Giles interjected, which was a nice lie. Then he prompted softly, “Ever since he came back, what?”

“I feel better,” Xander admitted with a miserable shrug. “I’d forgotten how it feels to just...I’d forgotten how we feel.” He couldn’t explain it any better than that. Despite the anger, the hurt and resentment, despite everything that’d happened in the cemetery, it was true. Being with Dean made him feel better.

Then, with a bitter, self-loathing chuckle, he asked, “Is that ridiculous? Everything that’s happened, and I’m still in love with him.”

He bit off the last word. And that was another thing he hadn’t meant to say. But he had, he’d admitted it out loud, which was totally bigger than admitting it to himself. Holding his breath, he waited for Giles’ reply.

“Xander...” Giles started, then stopped. Xander could hear the uncertainty in his voice, and waited anxiously. “Xander, are you sure?” Giles asked simply.

“No,” Xander admitted. “And...yes, at the same time. More yes, probably.” And that answer was way too helpless and incoherent, and he wished it could be different. “I don’t know what I’m doing, Giles. I’m not...” he paused, once again unsure how much he wanted to say. “He’s letting me take my time, letting me make the decisions about it all, though.”

“He’d damn well better be,” Giles said darkly. There was a pause, and when Giles spoke again, his voice was softer. “Xander, I would so much rather we were there to support you in person. I would rather be there with you for all of this. Please...do you need me to come?”

The sincerity in Giles’ tone came through clearly, and abruptly Xander could feel every mile between them.

“Well, it’d be nice to see you,” he admitted quietly, his voice rough again. Homesickness welled up, and you really could be homesick for people, cause he didn’t miss the place at all. But he swallowed hard and let it go.

It had been good to tell Giles even a little about what was going on, to talk to someone who knew him so well and cared so much. But there was nothing Giles could really do. He could glower at Dean, and handle the demon stuff, and he could probably take John in a fight. But he couldn’t fix Xander’s broken brain, he couldn’t help Xander decide what he wanted, he couldn’t stop the Winchesters from asking questions...well, maybe he could do that last one, but Xander didn’t want to see him try.

He knew Giles would be there if he needed him, though. He knew that. And it was enough. So he cleared his throat and said, “But don’t come. I think I’m better off doing this by myself, and...I’m dealing. Really.”

Which, yes, was a big, huge lie. But the sickening rush from the cemetery had receded just enough, and the tension and pressure of trying not to answer questions had just started to ease. He was feeling a little less raw. He could believe his own lies long enough to pretend for Giles.

And besides that, seeing the different sides of his life crash together like that was probably the worst thing he could imagine, the thing that really would put him over the edge. It’d mean even more directions to be torn in, and right now he needed to simplify, not complicate. _Less_ to worry about, not more.

“Just promise me you’ll be careful,” Giles was saying. “Not only with this demon, but with Dean. And with yourself.”

“I will,” Xander agreed automatically. Then his stomach roiled as he remembered the other promise he'd made, the one Faith had extracted from him only hours ago. In the cemetery.

“And you should know that no matter what you decide, you have my full support,” Giles added seriously. “If you wish to pursue the relationship again, or if you need advice on how to...get closure from Dean,” he said carefully. “You know that I’m only a phone call away. If it truly becomes too much, Xander, I can be in the country in a matter of hours.”

The promise in Giles’ voice was real, and _kind_. It was enough to send guilt flooding through Xander, worming through the through the memories of everything that happened in the cemetery. Because of Mary, he felt so goddamn _unworthy_ of that trust.

God, if Giles knew the truth, he’d be so freaked out. All of them would. They’d be so worried about him, and he just couldn’t do that to them again.

Closing his eyes against the guilt, Xander searched for something to say, something to show how grateful he was that Giles didn’t even know and worried anyway. He couldn’t apologise, but he had to say something.

He’d been silent for too long, and Giles was saying his name anxiously.

“I’m here,” he said quickly, voice cracking a bit. He cleared his throat. “Sorry, it’s been a really weird night, and I can’t tell...I can’t tell you how much it means to hear you say that,” he managed, smiling down the phone, even as his eyes started pricking suspiciously.

“So...thanks,” he added. Which was woefully inadequate.

“You’re welcome,” came the affectionate reply.

Xander breathed out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from a song by Queens of the Stone Age.


	16. Honest

After they’d said their goodbyes and hung up, Xander sat for a moment in the stillness of the room, trying to will the tension out of his body. The sound of Giles’ care was ringing in his ears, and it made him feel sick with shame and guilt. He didn’t deserve it.

He should call Giles back and explain. He should tell him about the flashbacks, about Mary’s voice in his ear, about how terrified he was. Except that anything he said would make him sound crazy.

He could call anyway, ask Giles to come and save him. From himself, from the Winchesters, from everyone’s questions. But Giles would have questions of his own, and Xander would have to answer them. And that took him right back to crazy.

Hell, maybe he _was_ crazy. It sure felt like it.

Sagging suddenly, he rested his elbows on his knees and let his head fall. The world was spinning around him, he’d dodged so many goddamn bullets tonight, and his hands were still shaking a little.

And the very last thing he wanted to do was go back out into his living room. He could practically feel Dean’s presence through the door, and he just couldn’t face it. He needed to think, he needed some peace...he needed a goddamn _time out_.

He stood, tossed the phone down on the bed, and yanked open the drawer of the bedside table. His spare packet of cigarettes had been partially crushed by a book, and the extra lighter clattered as he chased it through the rest of the clutter of crap that had somehow accumulated there over the past few days.

His eyes caught on the broken leather wrist band tucked in under his iPod, and he froze. Then he slammed the drawer shut.

Xander gritted his teeth and crossed the room, feeling a little like he might scream if he couldn’t get out. He yanked the curtains apart, shoved the window open, and climbed out onto the fire escape.

The view was nothing, just an alley clumped with dumpsters and dirty snow. But he’d hidden out here while Willow had been preparing to bring Dean back from the brink, and it was quiet. He sat on the metal walkway, back up against the wall and boots propped up on the lower railings. He wished he’d had enough brains to bring out something against the cold, but there was no way he was going back inside.

If he was quiet, he might be able to sneak enough time before someone – probably Dean – came looking for him. He could sit in peace and smoke for a while, try to unwind.

The flame snapped and popped in the cold. Xander closed his eyes and exhaled, sending smoke spiralling up around his head.

As he sat there, though, without distractions like Dean or phone calls from Giles, even as he felt himself relax, it all kept circling around in his brain. Giles. Faith. The cemetery. Dean. Dean’s family. Fuck.

He felt hollow, and weirdly like he was about to float away. The world seemed to spin slowly around him. It was probably shock, he realised, or the cold. He pulled his knees up tight against his chest.

God, he couldn’t believe he’d told them about Sunnydale. And not just Dean, but John and Sam, too. What the hell had he been thinking?

He hadn’t been. He hadn’t expected them to ask, hadn’t had a ready comeback or cover story. It had all been too fresh in his mind from the cemetery, and as soon as John said what he’d said, Xander had been thrown back in time. Sunnydale, Mary, that horrible nightmare, the fight in the school. All of it had felt _present_ in a way it hadn’t in months. It’d all felt so much closer and more real, like it’d happened yesterday. Like it was still happening all around him.

He couldn’t understand it. The cemetery, now this? It’d been slightly less frightening to remember in the living room, but probably because he hadn’t been in direct danger of death by zombie. It hadn’t been just her, this time, either, and it hadn't been quite as vivid.

The Bronze, the school. Dead girls. The guy in the alley. Spike’s blood, Buffy’s blood, and the smell of the Bringers. Intellectually he’d known he was sitting hundreds of miles and hundreds of hours away, but for a moment he’d gone totally numb with the force of his memories. His skin had felt tight, and a jagged wedge of pain had gone up his arm. He’d had to look down, to actually check that it hadn’t been sliced open again.

And he’d told them. It had been weird, how detached he’d felt as he stuttered out the parts of it that they were allowed to know. Like, on the surface he was calm, but underneath every bad memory he had was coiling tight in his stomach.

Thank God he hadn’t told them what the First had done to him. At least he’d stopped it before they got to that.

The closer they’d come – the closer Dean had come – to that particular part of the truth, panic had started to flutter in his throat. His calm had cracked. One misstep, and he knew the whole pathetic story would have come pouring out in an uncontrollable stream of words.

And he wouldn’t be able to take it back, and they’d know. Every time they looked at him, they’d know.

They’d know that sometimes, he wanted to die.

He shuddered. Mary was still close, still in the back of his mind. But he swallowed, pressed it down. It was a little easier, now that they’d finished asking their fucking questions. He wondered what the fallout would be, whether they’d treat him differently now that they knew even a little of what had happened.

At least they didn’t know it all. Somehow he’d managed to choose his words carefully and tell them just enough of the truth to explain why he was fucked up without actually explaining, without telling the rest of it. Without touching the part that actually mattered, the part that hurt like molten rocks in his chest.

Christ, he couldn’t believe he’d managed it. His stomach was swooping a little, still, like he was in freefall again. And Dean had promised not to ask again, and if Xander hadn’t been so desperate to keep his secrets he would have felt bad for manipulating Dean’s remorse like that.

But he figured it evened out. The less of the darkness twisting inside him that saw the light of day, the better.

Xander stubbed out his second cigarette. He’d lit it on auto-pilot, shaking hands managing to guide the flame to the tip with only a little bit of trouble.

Dean was better off if Xander kept it all hidden. _Everyone_ was. He didn’t want to be the one everyone worried about. He didn’t want them to freak out about something they probably couldn’t fix.

They couldn’t fix it. No-one could fix it. And between Mary, the cemetery, his broken brain, and the flashbacks he kept having, he’d end up in a padded cell.

They’d never really trust him again. And he was lying to them, so maybe they shouldn’t.

Xander rested his head on his knees, hugging his legs. He should probably tell the truth, and suffer the consequences. God knows what would happen the next time he had to fight, or the next time the Winchesters asked him a fucking question. And he’d always hated lying to everyone. It seemed like ever since Dean turned up on the doorstep that was all he was doing.

But he’d been lying longer than that, lying to himself. Did lying to his friends count if he hadn’t really known he was doing it? Not that it mattered now, because this time he did know. And the balance of lies, truth and misdirection he’d fed to Giles was already making him feel sick to his stomach.

Still didn’t make him want to tell the truth, though. Because the truth was so much worse.

He was clinging to that, desperately trying to convince himself it was the truth. He had to lie, he _had_ to. He didn’t want it to touch them.

He pressed his hands to his eyes for a second, trying to press the frustration back, trying to swallow past the tightness in his throat. God, he didn’t want this to be his life.

Breathing hard, he managed not to break down again, and after a moment managed another few shaky drags on the cigarette. The repetitive movement calmed him, gave him something to focus on.

His thoughts eventually returned to Dean, and he almost cracked again. Dean, who was so sorry for it all, who made Xander’s chest ache in so many different ways. The horrible part of all of this – maybe not the _most_ horrible, but still – was that he wanted to untangle Dean from it all, and wasn’t sure if he could. He wanted Dean to be safe and separate from it all, from what happened in the cemetery and from the blackness that was always in the back of Xander’s mind. From questions about the First and what he’d told versus what he’d hidden. From his vivid, hallucinatory memories.

Xander’s life had completely fallen apart around his ears, and Dean was totally involved. Most of it wasn’t even his fault, but he was involved just because for once, he was there. And Xander was afraid of the proximity, afraid that Dean would get hurt, somehow.

But short of telling him to leave, Xander didn’t know how to get him out. And he couldn’t quite bring himself to do that.

Hence the lies.

If he couldn’t bring himself to make Dean leave, maybe he could try to keep the worst of it away from him. Not permanently, probably, and maybe someday when he finally told the truth Dean would turn around and tell him he’d been sold something he didn’t want. That Xander’s brand of crazy was too dark, too much, and he didn’t want to deal with it.

But maybe someday Xander wouldn’t tell the truth. Maybe he could just fix it on his own, and leave it at that. Maybe with time, he could...he could work it out.

He turned that idea over in his mind, pulling out yet another cigarette. Could he do that? Could he just wait, and see what happened, and try to fix it without involving Dean or anyone? Without worrying them? Without letting them know his will to live wasn’t quite as strong as it should be?

He could keep lying, for now, until he decided...something. Until he had a better idea of what the fuck he was doing. He could take some time to get his head straight, and ignore what everyone else thought he should be doing.

One thing at a time, he remembered, even though the list kept getting longer. And as he thought about it, about what had happened that night and what he thought he wanted to do about it, he felt a reassuring glimmer of possibility.

As scary as it had been, what happened in the cemetery hadn’t killed him. She still hadn’t won. Dean hadn’t left, and Xander had managed to hide the blackness twisting away inside him, from both Dean and Giles.

He hadn’t died, and he’d kept his mouth shut. These were both good things, he decided, hugging himself tightly.

After a moment, Xander relaxed his arms and rolled the still-unlit cigarette around between his fingers. He was going to have to quit at some point. Both the smoking, and the lying. He wasn’t sure which was going to be harder.

But maybe he could do it. With time.

Time. Time that could also be spent working out what the fuck to do about Dean. And the demon, of course, although the thing was totally low on his list of priorities.

But hell, he had a list. He had stuff to do. Dean wasn’t leaving yet, and neither was he. He wasn’t about to take the easy way out, no matter how crazy she made him feel. She hadn’t won, and he didn’t want her to.

He’d forgotten what it was like, that feeling. It was faint, he still felt like he was hanging on by his fingertips, but the abyss was receding again. And this time he actually wanted it to recede.

For some reason, the next thought his mind wandered to was the look on Dean’s face, the warm, heartbroken look when he promised he was staying. The look that Xander suspected meant _I love you_.

The memory of it made warmth in his chest get stronger, so strong it was practically an ache. He wanted Dean so badly, all of a sudden. He wanted Dean there, sitting next to him.

Even though all it would take would be to lean his head in through the window and call out, he didn’t move. He sat there in the cold and lit another cigarette, instead, letting it all settle inside him a bit more. Letting himself start to feel...better.

***

Dean approached the bedroom door with his heart in his mouth. There was total silence from beyond it – no pacing, no rustles, no talking – and he knew he should probably leave Alex the hell alone, but...

Total silence, and it was freaking him out. He had a constant waking nightmare of Alex on the ceiling of a bedroom, and he just couldn’t deal with it anymore.

He knocked softly, then a bit louder. No reply.

The tension in his shoulders got painful.

He knocked again, then just opened the door, horror in his belly and his eyes searching the ceiling as soon as he could see it.

But the room was empty, totally still. Except for the curtains, which were shifting a little in the breeze coming through the open window.

Dean was at the window in a flash, heart in his throat as he leaned out, looking for Alex and panicking.

“Hey,” came a low voice from somewhere near his elbow. He startled, and looked down to see Alex sitting calmly on the fire escape, smoking a cigarette.

“Jesus,” Dean managed raggedly, adrenalin fading for what had to be the millionth time that night. “I thought...Sorry, I was...”

Alex shrugged, and stared back out at the uninspiring view. He stubbed out his cigarette and shook another from the denuded pack. “Sorry for scaring you. I just needed to think.”

Dean looked at him, heart-rate slowing as he took in the shaky movements and pale skin, the defeated slump of Alex’s body against the bricks, and the fact that the cigarette butt had joined three others already stubbed out on the metal. “Everything okay with Giles?” he asked eventually.

“Yeah,” Alex replied. “He just wanted to chat.”

“Right,” Dean said, trying not to sound too sceptical. That was so not the extent of it. But Dean let it go, because Alex looked and sounded completely exhausted. After a moment, he said, “Are you alright?”

And Alex...Alex got a weird look on his face, part exhausted, part amused, still edged in the usual darkness. He looked up at Dean with something bitter in his eyes. “No, not really.”

Dean stared miserably back, pinned by his complete helplessness in the face of Alex’s...God, he didn’t even have a _word_ for it. Tearing his gaze away, he looked uselessly up and down the alley again, wondering if he should just pull his head back into the apartment and leave Alex the hell alone.

But he didn’t want to. He didn’t want Alex to be out here unprotected, and more importantly on his own. _Alone_. Dean looked over again, trying to read from the line of Alex’s mouth and the way his hands fiddled with the lighter whether he wanted space or support.

Trying to work out whether he had absolutely any goddamned right to offer either.

Scraping some courage together, he finally asked, “Could I...Do you have any spares?” He nodded at the packet.

Alex looked up again, and Dean had trouble breathing because there was _hope_ in his eyes. He didn’t look angry, didn’t look like he didn’t want Dean there. The opposite, and Dean didn’t know how the fuck it could be _possible_.

Alex held out the packet of cigarettes invitingly, and Dean almost climbed out the window then and there, but then he noticed what Alex was wearing.

“Oh, for the love of God,” he said shortly, and pulled his head back into the bedroom with an irritated noise. Looking around angrily, his eyes lit on the bed and without a second thought he dragged the duvet off and carried it to the window. He bundled it out, pushing the fabric at a confused Alex, who’d fortunately pushed himself to his feet as if about to come and see what Dean was doing.

Pulling and arranging the duvet didn’t take long, and Dean soon had it wrapped around Alex’s shoulders. “You’re insane,” he said angrily. “You’re sitting out here in jeans and a goddamn sweatshirt, and you’re gonna freeze to death.”

Alex stared at him, surprised, and Dean’s irritation prickled under the warmth he could see dawning in Alex’s eyes. After a moment, though, a broad smile bloomed across his face, and Dean had to work hard to ignore completely embarrassing sun metaphor that once again popped into his head. He ducked his head and fiddled with the edge of the duvet, hoping Alex hadn’t noticed how red his ears probably were.

Then, Alex said, voice low, “You’re one to talk.” And he lifted an arm to pull Dean into the circle of material.

After a few moments of shuffling, they managed to sit back down, wrapped up tight together. It really was cold out on the fire escape. Between the bricks at their backs, the metal grille they were sitting on, and the air coming _through_ the grille, they were totally surrounded. And Alex _was_ goddamn freezing – the shaking hands were just the start, his whole body was cold – and Dean should be pissed off.

Except Alex had pressed right into Dean’s space, probably looking for warmth, and the proximity was making his heart race. He had to close his eyes and concentrate on breathing for a second, because he could feel movement, feel the expand-contract of Alex’s chest as he breathed and the slight shifts in position as he tried to get comfortable.

And it all meant that Alex was alive. Alive, breathing, willing to be close to Dean. Dean couldn’t stop the feeling that swept over him again, the way every single one of his senses focused on the body beside him. Alex was alive, and the _relief_ of it wasn’t going away any time soon.

Then Alex nudged him, and silently offered to share his half-gone cigarette. Dean took it, trying not to blush, trying to pretend he hadn’t turned into a fifteen year old girl while no-one was looking. After a few inhalations, he held it out to look at, one arm stuck out through the gap in the duvet so they could both contemplate the cigarette. “When did you pick this up again?” he asked quietly.

Xander shrugged. “It’s been a hard year,” he said evenly. Which, instead of answering the actual question, answered the one Dean hadn’t felt he had the right to ask – why.

Self-loathing washed over him again, but at the same moment Alex shifted closer, curling his body so he could rest his head on Dean’s shoulder. Dean’s arm went up automatically, sliding between the duvet and Alex’s back to hold him close, but the feel of Alex’s arms going around him had goose-bumps coming up on his arms and electricity skittering down his spine. Without thinking, he pressed a kiss to Alex’s forehead.

Alex shifted again and ended up even closer, practically in Dean’s lap, and Dean couldn’t believe it.

How could it be _possible_? After everything Dean’d done, after everything Alex had been through that year, fuck, after everything that had happened _that night_ , the idea that he wanted to _cuddle_...

How could he stand to have Dean anywhere near him? How could he stand to press his forehead to Dean’s skin and breathe like it _relaxed_ him? Dean felt like he was drowning in unworthiness, in the sure knowledge that he had absolutely no right to be here. Alex should hate him, and Dean had no idea why he didn’t.

But it didn’t matter, he remembered. It didn’t matter that he had no answers for himself, because Alex hadn’t told him to leave yet. So he had to wait. He’d wait until he understood, until Alex explained it. Or until he told Dean to leave, which Dean would completely deserve when it happened.

No more leaving, no more questions. No matter what happened, no matter who else called or what other nightmares Dean found out about. He just gonna wait, and be there when Alex was ready. This time, he was keeping his goddamn promises. And even though he had no idea why, he’d sit here as long as Alex wanted, as long as Alex would let him.

Alex shifted in his arms, and Dean shifted with him, tossing out the burned-down cigarette. Alex obviously wanted to be held and Dean needed both hands and all his concentration to do it properly. He pulled at the duvet, securing it around them a little tighter.

Everything Alex had seen, everything that had happened, and all Dean had to offer was his completely laughable comfort. He’d give Alex his heart on a silver plate if he thought it would help, but until then, this was all he had.

So he held on tight, feeling useless and fiercely protective, and listened to Alex breathe. He counted the heartbeats he could feel through Alex’s ribcage, every moment reassuring him again that Alex was there, he was real and alive, and he hadn’t been torn apart by zombies or non-corporeal scary-as-shit metaphysical forces.

Alex was warm and close and alive. Dean tried to tell himself that was enough, that everything else was going to be okay. He tried to lie.

They stayed out on the fire escape until dawn, the dark night giving way to something only slightly less cold. As light started creeping across the sky, Dean felt something in Alex relax, like he’d been waiting for sunrise.

He was a little surprised John hadn’t insisted they come inside. His father had poked his head out through the window at one point, but ducked back inside without a word when he’d seen them sitting there. He’d come back and leaned a shotgun against the wall below the window, within Dean’s reach, but other than that he’d left them alone.

Now, they untangled themselves from the duvet and each other, limbs stiff with sitting in the cold. Alex stumbled as he climbed back through the window, but Dean caught his arm before he could fall.

Once they were inside, Alex wandered through to the other room, and Dean dropped the duvet and the gun next to the bed and followed. Sam was sacked out on one of the sofas, but John was still reading.

“Hey, Dad,” he said. He was feeling a little fuzzy; he’d almost been asleep out there. “You got anything?”

“What?” John said, concentration broken abruptly. He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck, obviously tired. “No, not really. I was just going over the ones we started with, see if we missed anything.” He paused, then asked, “Everything okay?”

The question was directed at Alex, more than Dean, and Alex just nodded. “Yeah, it’s fine,” he said quietly. He sounded tired, but instead of heading for bed he crossed to the windows and twitched open the heavy drapes a little, letting the light in. John squinted as some of it fell across his paper, looking a little surprised that it was there. He’d obviously been working hard enough to lose track of time.

Dean sighed. He hadn’t been helping. Well, he’d been helping Alex, kind of, but not his father. And he’d offer to help now, but as urgently as he wanted to find the demon, he really wanted to sleep. He cracked his neck and looked down at Sam. “I see Sam’s done for the night. You should probably get some sleep, too, Dad.”

“I will,” John said absently, already back in the book.

Dean could feel Alex’s eyes on him. “You gonna sleep?” he asked, and Dean fumbled for a second.  
“No, you crash. I’ll be fine,” Dean replied. He was exhausted, and thought dizzily about how awesome the bed was. But a fire escape and a bed were two very different things, and he didn’t want to go where he probably wasn’t welcome.

Then, bitterness in the back of his throat, he wondered why he’d assumed Alex was talking about the bed and not the other sofa. Or the floor.

Alex watched him for another second, a slightly perplexed look on his face, then seemed to give up. “Well, the apartment’s totally warded, and the drapes are good against the light,” he said. “Blankets are in the hall cupboard. Giles will call back if there’s any news,” he added as he headed away back into the bedroom.

Dean turned his head only slightly, keeping Alex in his peripheral vision as long as he was able. Even when he couldn’t see him, he was so aware of him in the apartment. Beneath the sudden awkwardness, though, his utter relief hadn’t gone away. Alex was alive, and safe for now.

And sure, Dean’d probably be restless, so close but unable to feel Alex’s heartbeat while they slept. But he didn’t want to intrude.

There was also the fact that his father was sitting at the table six feet away. As much as John said he didn’t care, Dean had been cautious for too many years, and suddenly it was keeping him rooted to the spot.

“Dean,” John said quietly. “Go with him, and get some sleep. I’m going to take the other sofa.”

Dean stared at him, surprised. He hadn’t thought John was even paying attention, let alone reading his mind. His father looked over, calm and serious, like he was waiting patiently for Dean to understand something.

And then he did. John didn’t care. John expected them to sleep together. He wanted them to be close. He knew Dean wouldn’t be happy if they weren’t.

Blinking, Dean processed that for a moment. Then he turned on his heel and left the room without another word.

If Alex didn’t want him there, he could tell him. Dean would deal with that when it happened. He had to try.

In the bedroom, Alex was carefully pulling off his sweater, trying not to stretch his stomach too much. He’d put the covers back on the bed, slid the window closed, and pulled the drapes. The dim light was welcoming, making Dean’s tiredness peak. But he stood in the doorway anxiously.

“Hey. Uh, I know you might not...is it...can I sleep in here?” he fumbled out.

Alex looked at him, dark eyes too shadowed for Dean to make out what he was thinking. But he nodded, accepting what Dean offered without saying a word, just like he had on the fire escape.

Dean relaxed, relieved, and felt like he was falling closer to sleep with every second. He sat heavily on the bed and fumbled his boots off.

Then he stared at the door for a second.

Alex was climbing into bed behind him, and as much as Dean believed John was telling the truth, they didn’t need any awkwardness right now.

Dean went on undressing. The door stayed wide open.

His jeans and shirt hit the floor, and he wanted to groan as he slid his boxer-clad body into the bed. Alex didn’t really move, stayed curled up on his side, and Dean lay down carefully, trying not to disturb him.

After a few moments, Alex half-turned, an irritated look on his face. He gestured, and Dean shifted closer with his heart in his throat.

As they tangled together, Dean waited for words, waited to be told that he was doing something wrong. Fire escape aside, after the night they’d had he was still a little unable to believe that he was allowed to do this. But Alex grabbed his hand like always, and only fully relaxed when they were plastered together. He was asleep in seconds.

He hadn’t fucked it up, Dean realised, amazed. Not completely, anyway. Somehow, there was still hope. The future that he wanted so badly he could practically _taste_ it might still be able to happen. And he still had no idea why.

But it didn’t matter, because relief was flowing through Dean again, the so-good-it-almost-hurt kind of relief. Sure, he’d probably have plenty of opportunities to fuck it all up again tomorrow. But against all the odds, right now they were okay.

He pressed his nose into the back of Alex’s neck and held on, listening to his heartbeat. Finally, he relaxed enough to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from a song by Band of Skulls.


	17. Brother

Sam lay on the couch, staring up at the featureless ceiling. He wasn’t sure what had woken him. He vaguely remembered a nightmare of huge shapes crushing him beneath their feet, but he couldn’t remember actually falling asleep.

It felt like he’d never stopped thinking. His mind had been going in circles from the second he’d started struggling towards consciousness, and between that and the nightmare he felt like he hadn’t actually slept. He sure as hell didn’t feel rested.

His father was snoring lightly on the other couch, and Sam was distracted from the rareness of seeing his father sleep by the fact that he’d apparently draped a blanket over Sam before turning in. John had a blanket of his own, and it bugged Sam because what if the blankets were cursed like the books?

Surely Alex wouldn’t have given them cursed blankets, even by accident? Surely, even on the hellmouth, you didn’t leave cursed blankets in with the rest of the sheets and towels?

And yes, okay, he was probably crazy, he decided, rubbing his forehead with a wince. He was still half asleep and his mind was wandering. It could probably be taken care of with some coffee, he decided.

But the idea probably never would have even occurred to him, not even in a moment of tired loopiness, before he spent hours of last night’s research time reading theory about hellmouths, and actual stories about Sunnydale’s history. Before he’d discovered the world Alex lived in, and heard what happened the previous year. Before he found out where he was.

 _Hellmouth_. He was on the hellmouth. And he didn’t know the rules, he didn’t know what to look for, he didn’t know where the _traps_ were.

If he hadn’t actually heard about it straight from Alex, straight from the source, he might never have believed it. The stuff on the internet had read like the plot for a comic book, and if he’d stumbled across the website he’d been looking at on his own, he probably would have thought it was an elaborate PR stunt for a movie or an RPG or something.

It didn’t seem real. It seemed too big to be real. But between John, Dean and Alex, he had to believe it.

Especially Alex.

Alex, who was a survivor of what sounded a hell of a lot like a _warzone_. Sam had watched uneasily as Alex told them about the past year, and regretted his questions as soon as the full implications of what Alex described occurred to him. It had looked like dead people. Jesus. The expression on Alex’s face had reminded him vividly of a psychology class he’d taken back at school, when they’d described soldiers and trauma victims, when they’d described post-traumatic stress. He wished he’d never asked.

It still seemed too big, too impossibly big. Too big for the defences to be so human, and so ordinary. Sure, there was the Slayer, one girl in all the world, destined to fight. But she was still just one girl, and the deck seemed completely stacked against her.

The hellmouth had been under the goddamn _high school_ , for Christ’s sake. Alex had been fifteen when he started helping. _Fifteen_ , and repeatedly facing down the apocalypse.

And Sam thought his adolescence had been fucked up.

He thought he’d learned the truth when he was eight, learned about the real shape of the world when he learned the truth about his father. To find out now that it was bigger, that it was worse... How the hell could Alex stand it? The knowledge, the _awareness_ that the city – the _world_ – was just a thin dimensional wall away from hell and destruction. That it was all so breakable. That if the slayer and her friends had a bad day, everything could just...end.

Sam shifted restlessly, blinking and frowning. He had to stop thinking about this, or he’d never be able to sleep again. Part of him wished he could curl up under the covers and hide, like he used to when he was really little and thought there was something in his closet.

But he was too big to fit under the blanket, and besides, he thought with a wry grimace, this time his father’s .45 probably would be more comforting.

He listened to the silence in the apartment. Maybe he really should just give in and get up and make coffee? Maybe he could nap later, when everyone else was awake? And he’d slept earlier, and in the car, maybe that was why he couldn’t sleep now?

Well, no, it was pretty much because he was freaking out. Because he was _on the hellmouth_.

Sam shook his head and hauled himself upright. He sat there for a moment, elbows on his knees, breathing and trying to make the horror sink away.

Shouldn’t he have known? Shouldn’t they have stumbled across it before now? Shouldn’t John, Bobby, _anyone_ , have goddamn told them?

No, not them. Just him. Dean already knew. And he didn’t tell Sam, either.

Dean hadn’t told him a lot of things, actually, Sam thought bitterly. The hellmouth was one in a whole pile of secrets Sam hadn’t even suspected Dean had been keeping.

He rubbed his hands over his face again, twisting to stretch his shoulders out. _No changing it now_ , he reminded himself. It was done, things were different now, and they all needed to try and move on from here.

It didn’t really help with the hurt, though. If Dean had only _told_ him...

Suppressing the thought, Sam stood quietly, trying not to disturb his father, and headed across the room to the hall, then down to the bathroom. He took care of business, splashed some water on his face, and rinsed his mouth with some of Alex’s toothpaste.

Sam stared at himself in the mirror for a moment. He looked the same as he had yesterday, even though the world felt completely different. He frowned. He felt like what he now knew should show on his face.

He couldn’t keep his mind off the thought that Dean should have told him. Sure, maybe not before, when they were both younger. Dean had probably been freaked out for a while, when it started, about the hellmouth thing and about his sexuality. And then Sam had gone to Stanford. But they’d been out on the road together for a _year_.

Dean should have told him, but he hadn’t, and it stung. Why hadn’t Dean _warned_ him?

Sam couldn’t work out why the hell Dean was angry with him now, either.

It was unsaid, and it’d probably stay unsaid because Dean wouldn’t talk about what he was feeling unless Sam dragged it out of him, but Sam hadn’t missed it. Hadn’t missed the angry look, hadn’t missed the fact that Dean had reacted just as badly to Sam as he had to John when him and John had been fighting. Like he thought John and Sam were some kind of package deal, like Sam wouldn’t be on Dean’s side if John wasn’t.

Sam thought he’d fixed it, coming here and flat-out telling Dean it was okay. He’d thought Dean had understood. But Dean had still been angry, and what the hell?

Sam couldn’t figure it out. They’d been a team again for a while now, and he’d have thought Dean would know he could trust him. With Alex, with the hellmouth, with anything. Sam had thought they’d been brothers again.

But instead it turned out there were all these lies. And Dean was still angry with him.

Sam had left the bathroom, heading for the kitchen. But then he stopped, looking back towards the bedroom. Maybe Dean was awake? If so, Sam had questions.

He made it halfway down the hall, intending to rap his knuckles on the open bedroom door it if he heard movement.

Then he suddenly realised he couldn’t hear anything. His steps slowed, and he frowned.

The door was wide open, and he’d been listening for snores or shuffling that might indicate Dean was still asleep, or maybe awake enough for Sam to hassle him into confessing whatever the hell was wrong.

Except he couldn’t hear anything. No snoring, no rustling, no shifting cloth. No movement at all. And sure, Dean didn’t usually move much when he slept, and maybe Alex was the same, and maybe they were both just deeply, heavily asleep.

But anxiety skittered down Sam’s spine. The room was totally quiet. The whole apartment was quiet. _Too quiet_. Unnaturally, oppressively quiet.

Panicking, Sam rushed the last few steps to the bedroom, fear at what he might see thickening in his throat. What if it’d found them? What if something else had? It was the hellmouth, it could be anything. God, Alex had said they’d be safe.

He stopped just inside the bedroom door, shaking and catching his breath.

They were fine.

The room was practically pristine. The bedspread was clean, striped with a couple of bars of weak light that made it through the heavy curtains. Dean and Alex were there, safe, curled up together, and not snoring but now that Sam was close he could see them breathing, almost hear it, a little.

No-one was bleeding, and the ceiling was empty.

Sam exhaled, feeling relieved and a little ridiculous. God, he was paranoid. This city was off the demon’s radar. Everything was fine.

Well, not fine in the larger sense, but right here in this bedroom? Fine.

As Sam looked over the bed one last time, about to leave, he frowned, intrigued. There was something different, something about them that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Silently, he took a few steps closer as he tried to figure it out. He knew that watching his brother sleep was weird and kind of creepy, but he couldn’t help it. He couldn’t work out what had changed.

Dean had his forehead pressed against the back of Alex’s shoulder. He had one arm slung across Alex’s waist, the other wrapped around his own torso, but their bodies were pressed as close as possible under the covers.

The way Dean’s face was angled, Sam had a clear view of the scar cutting across his forehead, and the deep shadows under Dean’s eyes. He was suddenly struck with a reminder of everything Dean had been through in the past couple of days, and felt like an asshole for getting angry. God, Dean had just come out of a _coma_. How could he have forgotten about that? And yeah, Dean’d kept secrets and it pissed Sam off, but he’d paid a pretty big price. He was still paying.

The love of his life was the demon’s next target, and had lived most of his life on a hellmouth, besides. If Sam was Dean, he’d be stressed out and pissed off at everyone, too.

Alex’s face was buried in the pillows, so Sam couldn’t see his expression, couldn’t tell if he was having nightmares or not. But his hand was entwined with Dean’s, keeping him close even in sleep. Something like hope twisted in Sam’s chest. Surely that meant Alex trusted Dean a little, and still wanted him? Maybe everything between them wasn’t lost.

It would be a relief; Sam had gathered Alex was letting Dean stay on some kind of conditional basis, while he worked out whether to forgive him or not. And Sam could understand that. After the year Alex had, plus how much of an idiot Dean had apparently been, it made sense.

He still hoped it would work out. He’d seen so much of Dean’s grief, and Sam had been praying Alex could manage to forgive him.

With that in mind, he looked Dean over again. Right now, despite the scar and the circles under his eyes, despite everything, Dean looked deeply relaxed. He looked more peaceful than Sam had ever seen him, just about, and part of it could be just-out-of-a-coma exhaustion. But it seemed like more than that. Dean’s face had smoothed out in some indefinable way, almost like...

Almost like the pain Sam knew had been constantly with him since they’d heard about Sunnydale had been soothed.

Given that the reason for it lay breathing in his arms, Sam decided he really should have figured that out already. Because that was it, that was what was different.

Even in sleep, Dean looked comfortable in his own skin for the first time in months. Him and Alex looked so close, so _together_. Abruptly Sam felt like an intruder, like he was seeing something private that he shouldn’t be looking at. They looked...intimate.

And that was one word Sam would never have expected to associate with his emotionally-well-defended brother. Sam couldn’t remember ever seeing Dean look so unguarded, not even asleep, and certainly not with someone else there.

Suddenly Dean shifted, stirring, and Sam wouldn’t have woken them for the world. With one last look, he backed quickly out of the room.

His mind whirled as he padded back out into the living room. The peace of the scene stayed with him, an odd patch of comfort in the middle of everything else. Seeing them like that had been reassuring. It was a relief to see Dean so relaxed, safe and asleep.

And Sam wasn’t jealous of him. Not at all.

He buried the envy, and quietly crossed the living room to the kitchen. He started some coffee, peering into the now-empty bag with a frown. They were going to have to leave the apartment at some point.

Sam was unsurprised when the smell of coffee woke his father. John came and washed his face at the kitchen sink, resting both hands on the counter for a moment and letting the water drip off his chin.

“Hey, Dad,” Sam said from where he was sitting on the counter with his head against the cabinets.

“Hey.” John’s voice sounded weighted. Sam wondered if he was thinking about Dean, or about Alex, or about the story Alex had told them. It could be the last thing; Sam hadn’t really stopped thinking about that, either.

“Dad?”

“Yeah?”

Sam hesitated, then said, “Do you know anything about Alex’s parents? Does he have family?”

John paused. “Why?”

“No reason,” Sam said quickly.

“No, I don’t know,” John replied after a minute, keeping his eyes on the sink.

But Sam could see the clench of his jaw, see the anger in the lines of his father’s face. Something new started twisting in his stomach, and he had new questions now, but he didn’t know what to do about them.

“The boys’ll probably be up soon,” John said, making an effort and changing the subject. Sam raised an eyebrow at how casually John paired Dean and Alex together. He was finding it hard to come to grips with how badly he’d apparently misjudged his father on all of this. “You know what Dean’s like when he can smell coffee,” John added, oblivious to Sam’s surprise.

“Yeah,” Sam agreed fondly. “Wonder if Alex is the same?”

“At the rate he was inhaling it last night, he just might be,” John said, and he sounded almost fond as well.

Sam found a glass and drank some water, and they waited for the others to emerge.

***

Xander woke slowly, and felt suspended for several moments in that place between asleep and awake. He’d had a nightmare, one of the slow, sad, horrifying ones. The last, lingering vestiges had slipped away, but they’d been tinged with futility and betrayal. The panic that had gathered at the base of his spine felt oddly unformed, almost baseless, like he didn’t know what he was afraid of.

He struggled out of it, growing aware that he was warm and comfortable enough that if he wanted to, he could probably just drift back to sleep again.

He didn’t, though. He felt groggy, and his eyes were dry and tight but he forced them open. He ignored the ache in the base of his skull and the heaviness in his limbs. Both sensations were normal after most of his slower nightmares. The painful pull of stitches in his belly was new, though, and so was the arm draped across his chest.

Dean. Dean was wrapped around him.

Everything that had happened the night before came flooding back to him. Just like it had the last time he’d woken up, and it really had to stop, he thought helplessly, because every time he woke up it got worse.

Dean, the Winchesters, the cemetery. Zombies, and Faith. How strongly he’d believed...no, he’d _known_ , that Dean would leave. And how knowing that had almost gotten him killed.

The way Dean hadn’t left, and the way Xander wanted to believe it would be enough.

Dean’s arm around him felt like a dead weight. With the memory of the night before and the lingering sick feeling his nightmares gave him, Xander felt bitter. He also felt tethered to himself only by the thinnest of threads, totally dependent on things that were completely out of his control. Dean’s decisions to stay or go were going to break him, and he didn’t know how to make it not be like that.

He hadn’t told anyone, at least. Dean, the Winchesters, Giles. He hadn’t confessed his sins and asked for help, hadn’t thrown himself on their mercy. Hadn’t asked for the padded cell when maybe he should have. He was going to do it himself, fix it himself, he remembered. One thing at a time. His brand new mantra.

It was less reassuring in the harsh light of day, though, despite the desperate way he’d clung to it the night before. The weight of it all was coming down on him, endless nights and days stretching out in front of him when he’d have to _deal_ with all of it. He closed his eyes again, letting himself lie there. God, should he even get out of bed? With how the past few days had gone, maybe he’d be better off crawling under the covers and hoping it’d all go away, Dean included.

Then Dean shifted, tightening his arm a little as if checking Xander was still there. The dead-weight feeling changed, and instead of weighing him down Xander thought about the fire escape and the wordless comfort Dean had offered. And in the bathroom, when Dean had given him stitches and Xander had gotten caught up in the symbolism and briefly been sure Dean could fix the rest of him too.

In the kitchen, when they’d been close, so damn close. Even though it’d mostly been fuelled by grief and desperation, even though the intimacy had stretched thin and then been snapped, it’d happened.

The warm, fascinating look in Dean’s eyes every time he said the words. That’d happened, too.  
Did it really flip what’d happened in the cemetery? Was it enough?

Maybe. Maybe it could be.

Maybe, maybe, maybe. Xander abruptly got sick of the back and forth of his brain and decided denial might just be the best way to deal with all of it, for a little while at least. If he didn’t want to think about it, he wouldn’t. He could just pretend he was fine. It wasn’t like he hadn’t had plenty of practice at that particular skill – he’d started at an early age, and hell, last year he’d practically raised it to an artform.

He could ignore the past, ignore everything that had happened to him, even ignore everything he knew about the Winchesters. Then maybe he’d make it through another day.

He sighed – another maybe – then gently extricated himself from under Dean’s arm. He managed to make it off the mattress without waking him, but hesitated, standing beside the bed looking down at Dean’s sleeping form.

Part of him still wanted to crawl back in next to Dean, close his eyes, and wait for the rest of the world to go away. At the same time, Dean felt like the wrong pole on a magnet, like Xander physically couldn’t ever touch him again.

He also wanted to climb out the window and run away. He knew denial was only going to work for so long.

Instead of making a break for freedom, Xander grabbed a hoodie and his phone before wandering tiredly out towards the kitchen. Coffee, and maybe he could start another fight with John or something to distract himself. One thing at a time, but he never said it all had to happen right now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from a song by Alice In Chains.


	18. Like Eating Glass

John looked up when he heard shuffling noises from the direction of the bedroom. After a few minutes, Alex came into view, holding a sweatshirt and squinting at a cellphone. He looked tired, half-asleep, and John kept his eyes on the kid warily.

As John watched, Alex moved into the lighter areas closer to the kitchen. He was wearing pyjama pants but no shirt, not yet, and the white bandage from the previous evening gleamed in the dim room. John’s grip on his coffee cup tightened.

Alex had bruises. Some were dark enough to be zombie-related but others were old and yellowing. And the scars John had glimpsed the previous evening were plainly visible.

Several slashes crisscrossed over his heart. A burn splayed over his ribs like a handprint. He had a dozen smaller marks, from cuts and scrapes and burns, mostly all over his arms. He nodded vaguely at them as he came into the kitchen, squinting in the light from the windows, and passed John on his way to the coffee machine.

The movement gave John a clear view of his back, and John had to grip his coffee cup again. _Jesus Christ_ , he thought helplessly.

The burn from Alex’s front wrapped around, ending towards the middle of Alex’s left side. He had a bite mark on the back of one shoulder, too big and messy to be a vampire.

What really stood out were three long slashes, running from the other shoulder blade diagonally down towards his spine. They were healed but obviously recent. And they’d been deep.

There were other scars, large and small, and the problem wasn’t that they were there, but how old they looked. John had scars like that from things he’d hunted ten years ago. Alex was too goddamn young to have the same marks. Alex was a _kid_.

A kid who made a disappointed noise at the empty coffee machine, breaking John out of his horrified staring. He frowned down at his mug, peripherally aware of Alex sliding the sweatshirt over his shoulders and zipping it up.

“No more coffee?” he asked.

“Sorry,” Sam said awkwardly. “There wasn’t much left. Want this one?” he asked, offering his half-drunk cup.

Alex raised an eyebrow in Sam’s direction, but said absently, “Thanks, but you keep that.” He hesitated for a moment, running a hand up over his face and staring helplessly at the coffee machine. Then, muttering something unintelligible, he turned on his heel and headed back to the bedroom.

Crap. Sam looked uncomfortably at his mug, then met John’s eyes awkwardly. “We probably should have saved some,” he said.

John wanted to roll his eyes. It was just coffee, and it was a little ridiculous that something so inconsequential could be such a landmine. But it mattered. There were landmines _everywhere_ with this kid, and he’d have to pay more attention.

After a few minutes, Alex reappeared, pyjama pants replaced with jeans and socks, and the sweatshirt unzipped, showing that a layer or two had been added underneath it. John studied his face carefully, and was relieved to discover Alex didn’t look angry. He wasn’t cheerful, either, just...neutral. Blank, maybe.

“So, I’m gonna go get some groceries,” he said, and John’s gut twisted anxiously. He exchanged a weighted glance with Sam.

“You sure that’s a good idea?”

“Well, yeah. We need food, too.” In the silence that followed, Alex paused where he’d been reaching down for his boots. He rose slowly and turned to stare at them, frowning. “Seriously? We’re gonna have this fight _again_?”

John winced. “No, we’re not. Sorry.”

“It’s broad daylight,” Alex said, reaching for his boots again. “It’ll be fine.”

John hesitated. He’d heard stories about Sunnydale, he knew exactly how much went down in broad daylight.

Alex eventually looked up from tying his laces in time to catch sight of the expression that was still on John’s face, and rolled his eyes. “I need to get out of the apartment, and frankly, I’ll climb out a window if I have to. _We need coffee_. It's not negotiable.” Boots done, he stomped back towards the bedroom in search of something.

John exchanged another look with Sam, taking in the frown on his son’s face. Alex seemed more tired and frustrated than angry, which was good. But John was caught somewhere between knowing that Alex couldn’t go out alone, that one of them had to go with him, and how unwilling he felt to upset or irritate Alex any more than they already had, especially now that he’d seen the scars on the kid.

But awareness that the kid was a walking target for the demon had been crawling constantly under John’s skin since the night before. It could find them at any time, no matter what Alex said, and John had to be there when it did.

Alex came back, a black knit cap in his hands. He went over to the pile of leather and fabric heaped on one of the dining chairs, found his coat, and checked the pockets for gloves.

“Dean still asleep?” John asked.

“Yeah,” Alex said warily.

“Can I go with you, then?” John asked, trying to sound as polite and straightforward as possible. Alex didn’t like orders, fine, John could ask. And if Alex said no... Well, they’d go from there.

To John’s surprise, he simply said, “Okay. Let’s just get moving.” After a moment, he added, “You can buy the coffee.”

As he gathered up his stuff, John shot a parting order at Sam. “Keep reading. And don’t let your brother leave the apartment.”

He didn’t wait for Sam’s nod of agreement before following Alex out the door.

***

When Dean woke, it only took him a few seconds to realise he was alone again. He ignored the way it made his stomach clench; this time he recognised the bedroom, at least, and he could smell Alex on the sheets.

As he blinked himself awake a bit more, he grimaced. While it was oddly reassuring to be able to tell Alex had been there, smelling people would never not be creepy. He was going to have to keep a lid on that kind of behaviour. The smell made him smile, though. _Alex_.

He rolled over and hauled himself out of bed, pulling on his jeans before he left the room.

The apartment was quiet. Sam was at the table, on the laptop again. It took Dean a second, but he soon realised that Sam was the only one there.

Taking one last anxious glance into the corners of the apartment and trying to quell the panic ramping up inside him, Dean managed, “Sam? Where the hell is everybody?”

Sam startled. He’d been engrossed in something and hadn’t heard Dean come into the room. “Oh, hey. Uh...they went for groceries.”

Dean froze. “...what?”

Slowly, Sam said, “We’re out of coffee. Alex said he was going out to get some more, and you were asleep so Dad said he wanted to go too.” He sounded awkward, like he knew exactly how bad an idea that was.

The cold pit in Dean’s stomach turned icy. “Alex...Dad went...Fuck, nobody thought to wake me up?”

“I...we thought you should rest?” Sam said weakly.

And despite the disappointment when he’d woken alone, Dean _had_ felt rested. He’d felt rested right up until he’d started freaking out. He didn’t have words for how bad this could be.

It must have shown on his face, because Sam said, “It’s gonna be okay, Dean.”

Dean swallowed. “How was Alex?” he demanded. “Was he pissed?”

Sam shrugged helplessly. “No, he seemed fine. Dad was fine, too. He was...reasonable,” he interjected, before Dean could ask.

“Reasonable,” Dean said flatly. But it wasn’t going to do any good to get angry at Sam. Or panic. He deflated, running a hand through his hair. “Reasonable,” he said again. “Jesus.”

“Yeah. I’m sure it’ll be fine, though,” Sam said earnestly.

“Because everything’s gone so well so far?” Dean muttered, not wanting a response. He was probably overreacting. He was probably still half asleep. But the thought of John and Alex spending time together...there were just so many ways that could go wrong.

“What are you reading?” he said, making an effort to wrench his brain away from the potential disaster going on.

Sam looked sheepish. “Stuff about hellmouths.” To Dean’s raised eyebrow, he added, “I just want to know what we’re dealing with while we’re here.” He looked a little shifty, like there was more to it.

“You got freaked out about the cursed books, didn’t you?” Dean said knowingly.

“Uh, yeah?” Sam said, like it should have been obvious. “Cursed books, cursed objects, vampires, demons. There’s even this totally crazy story about a hellgod, Dean. I can’t believe people lived in that town.”

“Yeah, well. Everybody’s gotta live somewhere.” Dean couldn’t exactly laugh, but he managed slight smile. “Alex always used to say people could deny anything if it meant they didn’t have to move house.”

“How long have you known about all of this?” Sam asked, a hint of reproach in his voice.

Dean paused. The thing about Sam was that sometimes he was so completely transparent. “You mean, why didn’t I tell you?” Even as he said it, he could feel something inside him close up. He didn’t want to get into this with Sam, didn’t want to think about all the things that hurt when he looked at his brother. “Didn’t I already answer that question?”

Sam looked back down at the laptop. “No, that’s...I get it, I think.”Dean watched him closely, and had just decided Sam wasn’t going to go any further when he looked up again and said, “It’s because you thought he was dead, right? And you didn’t want to talk about it? You didn’t want to think about him?”

Dean’s heart clenched at the reminder, grief still holding on to him. He gritted out, “That’s part of it, yeah.”

Sam frowned. “What’s the rest?”

Dean hesitated. He had already answered this, he was sure, but clearly Sam thought there was more to it. In the end he just shook his head. “Not important.”

Sam seemed about to ask, but Dean talked over him. “So you found out about the hellgod? That’s on the internet? What else is on there?”

For a moment, he thought Sam might argue his obvious attempt at changing the subject, but then he looked at the screen in front of him and played along. “Uh, there’s some stuff here about some kind of Frankenstein monster? It seems like bullshit, though, there’s all this government conspiracy stuff, and it doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

Dean nodded, and said, “No, that one’s real too. It was just after he finished high school, I think, about a year after I met him.” It was weird thinking back to when it all started. Christ, everything’d been so different. Abruptly he realised Sam was staring at him. “What?”

Sam hesitated, and then hesitated some more. Dean could practically feel him physically holding back the questions.

“Spit it out, Sam.”

“I’m not sure if I should,” Sam confessed. “I know it’s none of my business, okay, but...Jesus, Dean, he was nineteen and fighting some kind of Frankenstein monster _made by the government_?”

Dean frowned. He wasn’t sure what Sam was getting at. “Yeah? Is it...we fought some whacked out stuff when we were young, too, Sam.”

“But that was because of Dad,” Sam insisted. “And we did a couple of hunts, he was _living_ this stuff. From what I can tell it was going on all the time, and he was _fifteen_ when he started. Who the hell was supposed to be taking care of him and keeping him out of harm’s way?” he demanded, flustered and horrified, flapping a hand at the computer. “I mean...doesn’t he have _parents_?”

Dean reminded himself pretty sternly that Sam meant well, that his heart was in the right place, and he was only asking because he’d never heard the flat, disinterested tone Alex got in his voice when he talked about his parents. He’d never seen the empty look in Alex’s eyes.

But it didn’t help. Dean couldn’t hide the unbridled fury that surged in him when he thought about the Harrises, even though he kept his eyes carefully on the floor. When he’d gritted his teeth long enough for the anger to subside, he looked up at Sam and saw that he hadn’t missed Dean’s reaction. Hell. Well, at least Dean wouldn’t have to put it into words.

“Don’t ever ask him about them, okay?” he instructed, ignoring the hoarse note in his voice. “They never...just don’t. No more questions. You don’t ask him about that, or anything else. We should never have—“ He broke off. God, asking Alex about his parents really would be the last straw. Dean didn’t even know if they’d survived the fall of the town, and he knew it was chickenshit but he didn’t want to see the look in Alex’s eyes when he answered that question. It didn’t even matter what the answer was, it was one kind of damage Dean had no hope of ever fixing.

But he managed to rein himself in again, mostly, and when he could he ground out, “He doesn’t owe us any answers about that, okay? We have _got_ to stop pushing him.”

“Okay, Dean,” Sam said quickly, and Dean could tell that he meant it, that he wouldn’t push.

“Except that’s probably exactly what Dad is doing. Goddamnit,” he said hoarsely, slamming his hands down on the table to punctuate the word. While he was sitting there on his ass, Alex was probably getting questioned _again_ , getting cornered, getting pressured into revealing more than he wanted. Hell, he’d already told them more than he was willing, that much was obvious. And right now, Dean was helpless to stop it.

He just had no idea if Alex was strong enough right now, was the thing. In the past, he could have dealt with John’s questions without breaking a sweat, but now...

Then Sam said, “I know, okay? I know. Last night...It went so badly, Dean. I didn’t mean for it to go like that. I didn’t mean—"

“Okay, Sam,” Dean cut him off. It wasn’t okay at all, but the look on Sam’s face was miserable, and his regret came through strong enough to derail Dean’s anxiety. “It’s fine, I know you didn’t,” he went on, trying to calm himself down, trying not to panic. “He’s just...he’s not _fragile_. He’s not _weak_. He’s the strongest person I know, but...he has limits.”

After a second, Sam said quietly, “I don’t think he’s weak, that’s for sure.” Sam didn’t sound defensive, like he thought Dean had been accusing him. Just like he agreed. Then he went on. “You know, having someone who loves him as much as you do... With everything Alex is dealing with, it has to help.”

Dean paused and tried to be annoyed, tried to sigh because Sam was clearly such a _girl_. But some part of him clung to the words with feverish intensity, and without meaning to he found himself saying, “You think so?”

“Yeah, I do. I think it really matters to him, Dean.” Sam sounded determined, and even though Dean knew it was mostly wishful thinking, he appreciated the enthusiasm. “And hey,” Sam went on. “He hasn’t thrown you out yet, right?”

Dean snorted. “Not too sure that counts for much, actually. Once we kill the demon,” he said, and stopped for a deep breath. “Once we kill the demon,” he repeated, bleakly this time, and again found himself unable to actually say, _he’ll have no use for me_. Whatever, he decided. Sam would either get it or he wouldn’t. And Alex might...

He managed to rally himself, refusing to think about what Alex might do, and cleared his throat. “So, speaking of the demon, have you been reading anything _useful_?”

Sam took the change of subject in stride, grabbed a book that’d been lying open in front of one of the other chairs, and started rambling about summoning rituals. Dean tuned out after a few moments, watching the clock and trying to ignore the anxiety crawling up and down his spine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from a song by Bloc Party.


	19. The Hardest Button To Button

The air outside was crisp and cold, and Xander breathed deeply, John trailing behind him as he walked down the street. The store wasn’t far, on the same block as the diner him and Dean had been to the day before, and God, had it really only been yesterday? It felt like _years_.

John was silent for several blocks, which made Xander a little edgy but also hopefully meant the white flag was still flying and John had embraced the concept of not pushing. Hopefully he’d have the sense to make that a lifestyle choice, a permanent part of his personality, but Xander doubted it. He had an unfortunate feeling that if for some reason John wanted to, he could and would make himself very hard for Xander to ignore.

As they approached the store, Xander absently started listing the stuff he needed to buy. Coffee, milk, bread. Twinkies for himself, M&Ms for Dean. Every other sugary thing he could get his hands on.

He turned to John. “Is there anything you want? Or Sam? Anything he’d like to eat?”

John started, and after a moment’s hesitation, he replied, “Well, I’m good with coffee and whatever. And Sam...” He shrugged, apparently a little at a loss. “He likes cereal? Cheerios are fine, I think.”

Xander didn’t comment, didn’t think about why John didn’t know what Sam liked to eat, but nodded and mentally noted to grab a box off the shelf.

Inside, he grabbed a basket and headed straight for the coffee. John shadowed him like some kind of silently irritating bodyguard. Silent until he apparently decided Xander’s earlier question had broken the ice and asked, “How’s your stomach this morning?”

Neutral topic, Xander noted. “Good, actually. A bit sore, but no big.”

“That’s good,” John replied calmly. They both kept their eyes carefully on the bags of coffee in front of them.

Xander took his time deciding. He knew John would rather be researching, or out looking for clues, or whatever the fuck hunting the demon usually involved, but Xander couldn’t really bring himself to care. Besides, John had offered to come.

He finally picked out three large bags of coffee, and they walked around to the next aisle, where the bread lived. The silence between them wasn’t as awkward as it could have been.

Then John cleared his throat and asked hesitantly, “What about everything else?” It took Xander a second to realise John wasn’t talking about the groceries, to remember what they’d been talking about before and work out what John would be referring to.

“I’m fine,” Xander replied, after a pause. The question had put him on guard, even more on guard than he already was, and he couldn’t help the defensive tone in his voice.

“Okay,” John replied quickly, visibly backing off.

They fell silent again. Xander picked out some bread and shoved it onto the basket, then frowned his way over to the milk.

He should just let it go, pretend like John hadn’t said anything. But he couldn’t.

He didn’t owe John anything, and he’d answered more than enough of John’s questions lately. He wasn’t even sure which part of ‘everything else’ John had been asking about. And discussing any of the parts didn’t fall under ‘ignoring it’ at all. But he couldn’t shake the urge to explain.

“It’s fine,” Xander finally said. “It’s not... None of this is _new_.”

He stopped talking, frustrated. Coming up with an articulate answer was difficult, mostly because ‘everything else’ was a ridiculously broad thing to question him on.

His answer fit for last year in Sunnydale, or the demon, which were probably the parts John was asking about. And sure, this particular demon was new, but demons in general weren’t, so the situation wasn’t exactly out of his range of experience. And the things that had happened that _were_ new...John didn’t know about them, or they weren’t things he would ask about.

As Xander thought himself into ever-decreasing circles, John nodded and backtracked again. “Right, No, I know. Well, I know _now_ ,” he admitted, and Xander was astonished to see a hint of a smile on John’s face. “I don’t know how we would have dealt with this if you were a civilian.”

Xander stood staring for a second, a bit bewildered by the appreciation in John’s voice. He watched with a frown as John reached past him for a box of cereal. It was almost like...it was almost like John _approved_. Blinking a bit, Xander managed to shrug, and answer, “One thing at a time, probably.”

John gave him a sideways look. “Yeah, but you probably wouldn’t be taking it quite so well.”

It was an invitation, Xander realised, into a joke. A tacit acknowledgement that yes, things were fucked up all over, but they could be worse. Which, he supposed, was true from John’s perspective.

In the spirit of ignoring everything that was fucking him up, Xander raised an eyebrow, and rose to the challenge. “True,” he said dryly. “I guess I’m just well-adjusted like that.”

John snorted, and something in his shoulders relaxed. John was _trying_ , Xander realised. He was going beyond the civility required by the white flag, and actively trying to be nice to him. It was easily the most fucked up thing he’d seen all week.

“Well-adjusted for people like us, I guess,” John offered, looking away to scan the store for the millionth time since they got there. It struck Xander how out-of-place John looked, how obviously the aura of vigilance John carried around didn’t fit with the mundane-ness of the sticky floor, the crappy, food-packed shelves, and the fluorescent lights.

“Well, yeah,” Xander agreed. He wasn’t feeling too well-adjusted lately, but he could run with the lie. He found himself admitting, “I don’t really remember what it was like not to know the truth, though. I mean, when I was a kid, maybe, but who knows anything when they’re a kid?” It was true – he’d found out about demons and vampires when he was fifteen, but it loomed so large in his memory that it coloured everything that came before.

On that note, he headed for the Twinkies. He had a feeling he was going to need them.

John took a moment to digest that, trailing slightly behind Xander down the junk food aisle. “How did you find out?” he asked, undisguised curiosity in his voice.

Xander grimaced. Another question. “I met Buffy,” he said, and left it there.

John clearly picked up on the fact that there was more to the story. But he didn’t push.

Xander blew out a breath, and added, “Before that...I guess I always suspected. There’s only so many wild animal attacks and barbeque fork accidents you can hear about before the mental itch starts, you know? And even when you’re only fifteen, or thirteen, or ten or whatever, seeing people walking around when you’d only just heard last week that they were dead...you do start to think that maybe something’s not right.”

He paused. He hadn’t really thought about early life in Sunnydale for a long time, and he was a little surprised at himself for sharing. But John was trying and Xander was tired and this was easier to talk about than anything else.

God, he needed coffee.

He handed his basket to John, and started digging around for his wallet, wandering in the general direction of the cash register. “Nobody talked about it, but everyone knew. Even just... subconsciously,” he added, waving a hand around. “Everyone knew. When I found out about Buffy, it just put a name on all of it,” he added.

John seemed to be processing, and Xander let him in favour of smiling at the cashier and thinking about cash or credit. He paid cash, and wanted to roll his eyes again at John’s unspoken approval that he hadn’t left a paper trail. Whatever, it hadn’t been deliberate.

They took a bag each, and hit the street. Halfway down the block, John said, “Barbeque fork accidents?”

He sounded _bewildered_ , and it was enough to startle half a laugh out of Xander. “I know, right?” he replied. “The cops were useless, and the town’s mayor was in on it for years and years. You know, until we blew him up at Graduation,” he added, feigning nonchalance while glancing up at John to see how he’d take it.

John stared back for a second, as if he was waiting for Xander to admit he was joking. When Xander said nothing, John thought for a second. Then his eyes widened. “Wait, the giant snake? That was the _mayor_?”

“You heard about that?” Xander asked. He’d meant to laugh it off, to shock John and win the first of what would no doubt be many rounds of ‘my monsters are bigger than your monsters’. But sudden uneasiness in his belly meant the whole thing abruptly wasn’t funny, and it took him a minute to work out why.

“Yeah, there were stories that got passed around from hunter to hunter, mostly in bars,” John was saying. “I didn’t believe half of them, but...well, everyone knew Sunnydale was on the hellmouth.”

“Everyone _knew_?” Xander said. Definitely not funny anymore. John used to hear stories about them, he’d admitted it earlier. But now it occurred to Xander what that actually meant. “And they knew enough about it to tell you my name? To know about graduation, and about Buffy and everything?”

John nodded.

Xander stopped walking. His uneasiness had become anger, fuelled by the heavy grocery bag that was digging into the wound on his stomach. John had stopped beside him, and Xander pinned him with a glare. “Did it ever occur to any of you to drop by and _help_?” he demanded.

That last year in Sunnydale had been almost too much to bear, and there had been times when it’d felt like one bruise and bloodied wound after another, like people were dying all around him. It all came back on him, hard, and so did all the things he and John had been ignoring in favour of being friendly to each other. This was Dean’s _father_ , the man who’d been the reason for so many goddamn fights and so much wasted time, and he’d known what Xander’s life was like all along.

It was irrational, because John hadn’t known that he had any connection to the kid in the stories about the hellmouth. But he did now, and Xander wanted to know what he had to say for himself.

John stared at him for a moment, uncomprehending. Then, as it all registered with him, he dropped his gaze guiltily and stared at the pavement, shifting his own bag in his arms. He was obviously thinking, and Xander let him, refusing to offer an out.

After what was probably only a few seconds but felt longer, John raised his head and met Xander’s eyes again. “I can’t speak for any of the other hunters. I never came to help because I wouldn’t bring my kids to the hellmouth, and I wouldn’t leave them for a place I was so sure I’d never come back from. And when they weren’t children anymore...well, Sam was at college, and me and Dean...You were all older, too, by then. You all seemed to have it covered. And I had other problems,” he finished softly.

Xander stared a moment longer. Other problems. No way those problems were bigger than the end of the world, but fuck it, he was tired of this already. He sighed. “Yeah, okay, whatever.” It wasn’t really okay at all, but he started walking again anyway. Started ignoring everything he hated about John Winchester again. They were almost there. “Does everyone know we’re in Cleveland now, too?” he asked bitterly.

John hesitated. “I don’t know. I haven’t asked anyone about it. I think Sam found you online somewhere.”

Xander paused, one hand on the front door of his apartment building. “Sam found me online?”

“Yeah, the apartment’s in your name.”

Xander mulled that over for a moment. “I think I’m gonna talk to Giles about that.”

***

They took the stairs, and John decided it was safer to keep his mouth shut than risk starting another conversation. He felt like he’d barely got out of the last one alive. Halfway up the last flight of stairs, though, they heard voices filtering from the hallway above. Xander’s head flew up as he heard it too, and John matched him when he quickened his pace, taking the last of the stairs three at a time.

They rounded the corner to Alex’s hallway only to see two teenage girls, one holding a box, glaring at a worried and belligerent-looking Dean. All three heads whipped around to look at them and their grocery bags, and Dean turned on his own glare. “There you are. You’ve—" He broke off, shut his mouth with a snap, then went on, gesturing at the girls. “They’ve been wondering what I did to you and where I hid the body, man.”

Alex went up to them, frowning. “Cassie, Lettie. These are friends of mine,” he said, a warning clear in his voice.

“Oh,” the boxless girl said, and John thought she looked almost disappointed. She glared at Dean again, though.

The box-holding girl – possibly Lettie – beamed up at him, relief and unmistakeable adoration in her eyes. “Hi Xander. Sorry. Faith sent us over with a box of books from Giles.”

Alex’s shoulders slumped. “Oh, really?” He sounded unenthused, and didn’t make a move to take the box.

“Yeah, something about a demon?” Cassie said quizzically, clearly the more assertive of the pair of them. “Did something happen? I thought it was only zombies this week.”

For a moment, John and Dean froze visibly, and Cassie noticed. She looked between the two of them suspiciously, and John opened his mouth to say something but decided to wait and take his cue from whatever Alex said about the situation.

Alex, looking frustrated and harried, said, “It’s nothing, Cassie. When it’s a problem, someone’ll tell you.” He shoved his grocery bag at John and reached out for the box.

She seemed affronted at the implication that she wasn’t need-to-know, and glared at Alex. He visibly ignored her, and it felt like there was something here John was missing. The kid probably knew this girl, he realised, and there could easily be a history there.

Lettie seemed about as uncomfortable with the subtext as John, and handed the box over to Alex with an appealing smile. It dimmed slightly when Alex didn’t smile back.

Alex was too busy wincing at the weight of the box, which John realised had probably landed right on his injury. He had his arms full of grocery bags, though, so there wasn’t much he could do about it. “Thanks, girls,” Alex managed, sounding a little strained. “We’ve got to get to work, but I’ll see you later, okay?”

John was about to step in, hand the grocery bags off to Dean or Sam and take the box, but Dean beat him to it. He’d been looking between Alex and the girls – more at Alex, running his eyes over him with a frown, as if making sure there were no limbs missing – and when he noticed the wincing, he took the box without saying anything and disappeared into the apartment. Alex immediately rubbed his stomach, a relieved look on his face.

“Are you okay?” Lettie asked, overly worried.

“I’m fine. It’s just a scratch. Zombies, you know,” Alex explained, this time gifting her with a warm smile.

“Okay,” Cassie said grudgingly, casting another suspicious look at Dean’s retreating back. She seemed unwilling to question Alex, though, and said, “I guess we’ll just go, then.” She left with a disgruntled look on her face, Lettie trailing behind and waving over her shoulder at them.

Alex did wave back at her, but the warmth fell from his face as soon as the door was shut, and he rubbed his stomach again.

“You alright?” Dean said with a frown. He’d put the box on the table, sliding it in amongst the other books.

“Sure,” Alex replied. “Just, you know, knocked it.” John didn’t ask about the girl.

Dean nodded and watched as Alex pulled a phone out of his pocket and hit a number that was obviously speed dial. The last traces of his frown were still on his face, but his voice was warm enough when he spoke.

“Giles. I have a box full of books now. You want to tell me what they’re for?”

John peered into the box, squinting at titles. There were only five or six, but a couple of them were thick and heavy-looking. When he reached in to pull a book out, though, Sam grabbed his wrist.

“Hey, these books are fine, right?” he said anxiously to Alex, who looked at him in surprise, distracted from whatever Giles was saying. “Anymore curses or soul-sucking?”

With a quirk of his mouth that could have almost been a smile, Alex repeated Sam’s question through the phone. After a moment of listening, he nodded and gave Sam the thumbs up. “All clear, Sam,” he said gravely. John couldn’t tell if he was making fun of Sam or not, but rolled his eyes anyway.

Reassured, Sam started unpacking the books and making interested noises. John watched closely, but his attention was pulled by the conversation Alex was having with Giles, and the way Dean hovered, arms crossed, watching Alex anxiously.

He suppressed a sigh, and started listening in on Alex’s conversation with Giles. Maybe there’d be a concrete problem, something he actually had a chance at fixing, or a question he could answer without screwing up something else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from a song by the White Stripes.


	20. Dancing For Rain

Xander turned his attention to Giles. “—and I should hope you’ve already read through all the other books. What have you been doing over there?”

Giles sounded irritable, which meant that this conversation was going to be great. “Well, I just got back from getting groceries, and before that we were sleeping?”

Giles was silent for a second. “Sleeping?” He said it like he’d never heard of it before.

“Yeah, G-man, sleeping. It’s a thing, look it up. You sound like you could use some,” Xander replied, bemused. He could have bitten his own tongue off a moment later, though.

“Sleeping or having nightmares?”

Xander wanted to curse under his breath. Giles knew about the nightmares, or some of them, anyway. Everyone knew Xander didn’t sleep too well these days; he’d been fending off well-meaning questions about it for a while now. “Sleeping, actual sleep,” he replied. Or the closest thing to it he had for months, he thought, cutting his eyes at Dean in the hope that he wasn’t listening.

Dean looked grim, like he was filing Xander’s possible insomnia away to over-protect him about later. Great. “Anyway,” Xander went on, trying to pretend John and Sam weren’t listening as well and that he hadn’t said anything in the first place. “I didn’t call you for a mental health update. Did you want me to look at one of these books?”

Giles didn’t reply for a moment, and when he did, his tone was suspiciously casual. “You know, I’m a little surprised you could sleep with him there.”

Xander froze, then said slowly, “I thought I already refused to talk about that.” He’d been successfully distracting himself with groceries and coffee and nostalgia for his early years in Sunnydale; he could fend off a few delicate questions, but he didn’t like the serious way this one had been repeated. He didn’t want to start thinking about his problems now.

Silence from the other end. Giles was clearly not happy with his answer. “Yes, well,” he finally said. “Since I spoke to you yesterday, I’ve been...thinking about it, I suppose. It’s not a satisfactory situation, Xander.”

Xander could have laughed. “Yeah, you think I’m not aware of that?” he replied, all the bitterness, disbelief and near-hysteria threatening to rise up and wash over him again. He walked out into the living room, away from the table, and as he spoke he turned in a frustrated circle. “Believe me, Giles, no-one is more aware of that than I am, okay?”

Giles sighed. “Yes, my apologies. Let’s focus on the books, shall we?”

“Good idea,” Xander said, gritting his teeth and mentally pulling himself back together. Man, the last thing he wanted to do was think about how unsatisfactory his life was. He knew it was fucking unsatisfactory. All Giles accomplished by telling him about it was make it that much harder to ignore.

“Can you find a book titled _Maryland, 1662_?” Giles asked. “It’s bound in brown leather, I believe. I need you to look at some pictures.”

Xander took a deep breath, taking a pause for himself. “Pictures. Sure, I can do that,” he said after a moment, walking back to the table and turning his attention to the books with some relief. He tried to sound less tired than he suddenly felt, but it took effort, and he frowned at the pile Sam had laid out.

“It’s a rather slender title, but large all the same. There should be some gold edging around the cover,” Giles offered helpfully. He sounded a little forced, too, but like he was making the effort to lighten things up. “Take your time. I’ll wait.”

Xander rolled his eyes and poked around and finally found the book at the very bottom of the pile. “Okay, I think this is it. What’s next?” he asked, feeling subdued. He thought it could be the lack of caffeine, and starting sending vibes in Sam’s direction, trying to tell him to go make some coffee. It was probably wasted effort, though; Sam had pulled a giant, dusty book from the box and looked way too interested in it.

Giles asked him to turn to a section about a third of the way through his own dusty book. Xander flipped past some densely-printed text and a handful of maps, then stopped and let the book fall open on the table. The book’s text was badly printed and practically illegible, but the pictures were clear and distinct, thick black lines of ink on the page.

He stared the images, somehow sure that this was the right demon.

“Son of a bitch,” Dean muttered, looking over Xander’s shoulder. Xander wanted to agree; it was unmistakeable.

The left hand panel was a picture, an engraving, of a man twisted in agony as clouds of what looked like clumsily-rendered black smoke poured out of his mouth. He was tied down, with some people standing around and a priest standing over him. It was an exorcism, Xander realised.

On the right hand page was a different image, this time of a traditional devil – horns, fangs, hooves, tail, bat-like wings – grinning out at them. Its eyes had dark and light swirls through them. The image was black and white, so he couldn’t tell if they were meant to be golden.

In its arms was cradled a small infant.

“Oh my god, that’s...” Dean tried to draw the book away, but Xander pulled it back.

“Hang on, I need that.” In his ear, Giles asked, “There are several pages of images. Does any of it seem familiar to you?”

“Let me look...” Xander muttered, but the first image had already laid a heavy weight of recognition in his stomach. The others crowded around him, looking at the pictures.

Xander took in the people around the possessed guy, looking more carefully than he had before. Some had their hands up to their faces, some had their mouths were open like they were wailing or screaming or something. One woman was tearing at her hair. The men were wearing breeches and those weird hats Xander thought he’d seen in pictures of pilgrims.

When Willow and the others had rescued him from the warehouse, they’d driven the demon away with an exorcism last used by Catholic priests to save a girl in the late eighties. It’d been improvised; Wood had taken one look at the thing and started in on the Latin. It’d looked like this, the black smoke pouring out of the man’s body and disappearing. Before it left, it’d twisted the body’s face into an expression something like surprise.

The body had been dead before it hit the floor. Wood had been pissed that the demon had escaped, that they hadn’t been able to trap it and kill it. Now that it came down to it, so was Xander.

“Did you ask Wood how he knew what to do?” he said softly.

“He told me his mother’s Watcher taught him the exorcism, told him a story about a girl with strange eyes who could hold a priest up against a wall with the power of her mind. He never explained it further than that, so Wood doesn’t know anything else. And the Watcher’s dead, so we can’t ask him what he knew,” Giles replied.

Xander nodded, ignoring the fact that Giles couldn’t see him. He returned to the picture of the devil carrying the infant, because it was freaky on quite a few different levels. It mostly made him think of the story Dean had told him, made him wonder if that baby could have been Sam.

The next pages were full of badly-faded text, with one or two illustrated letters, and he flipped past them quickly.

The page after that had a couple of pictures of people being burned at the stake.

Xander shivered, and looked away. Burning people at the stake was also freaky, but in this case mostly because he didn’t want to think about other people in other centuries trying to deal with this thing. He didn’t want to think about people trying to stop it or kill it before, and obviously failing.

“Xander?” Giles said evenly.

Xander glanced at the Winchesters, and the answer to Giles’ unasked question was clear from the looks on their faces.

They’d ID’d the demon.

“Yeah, we think this is the one,” he said simply.

Giles was silent for a second, then sighed explosively. “I was hoping it wouldn’t be. From what I’ve read...this isn’t good, Xander.”

Xander rubbed a hand over his face. Yet another thing on his list of things not to think about. “I wasn’t expecting it to be.” He squinted at the text. “I can barely read this book, is it even in...any language at all?” He could usually take a guess, but this book was illegible. He let Sam pull the book away from him and turned from the table to pace away from the Winchesters.

“Yes, it’s in English, actually, but I know that the copy you have there is faded and damaged. It was badly printed to begin with, actually,” Giles replied. “We have a better version here that we’d already mostly transcribed. It shouldn’t take too much longer to have a complete version we can send to you.”

“Okay. Email it through, and I’ll call you back when I get it.” Xander feigned casualness, but he wasn’t above pleading if Giles decided to prolong the conversation for any reason. He _needed_ coffee.

“Of course. I’ll speak to you soon,” Giles said, with only a slight hesitation. Xander felt part of him untwist a little. He made the effort to sound normal when he said goodbye.

He hung up the phone and stood there for a second, staring blankly, arms crossed over his chest. The demon. It’d been in the back of his mind since the damn thing pinned him down in the warehouse, but in the face of all the other stuff that’d been going on it’d been easy to forget about. Even with after Dean’s confession the day before, it had only felt important as part of the reason John and Sam were here, or part of the reason Dean was here. Now, though, now that he’d seen the pictures, now that they’d ID’d it...

“What did he say?” Dean asked, and when Xander looked up, he was watching him anxiously.

“He’s gonna send through a readable version of the text, and then we’ll go from there, I guess.” Xander felt pinned by Dean’s gaze, which had so much in it that he wasn’t ready to deal with.

John, in a display of persistence and obstinacy that Xander probably should have expected, pulled the book towards him and started trying to read the weird, unreadable print anyway.

Xander hesitated, then said, “So. Who’s up for breakfast?” He escaped to the kitchen without looking back, and headed straight for the coffee machine.

***

Dean left John and Sam poring over the unreadable book and followed Alex into the kitchen. He felt weird, restless or something, even though relief had hit him as soon as he’d seen Alex come round the corner in the hallway.

“Are you okay?” he asked, watching Alex fill the coffee pot full of water.

Alex looked at him and raised an eyebrow.

“With Dad. Was it okay?” Dean asked impatiently, unable to keep the irritation out of his voice.

“Yeah,” Alex shrugged, returning his attention to the coffee machine so he could pour the water in. “He’s being polite,” he added absently.

“I know,” Dean admitted, confused. “It’s not exactly what I expected.”

“Yeah, I figured.” There was only a trace of resentment in his voice.

Dean looked away, nodding.

Alex apparently saw the regret on his face anyway, because he said, “It’s fine, Dean. Forget it. We need to deal with the demon first, and after that, we’ll figure everything else out.” He sounded firm, determined, but then he muttered, “Just...I’m taking it all one step at a time,” and his voice was bitter.

“Like an alcoholic?” Dean asked, frowning. The idea made his heart ache a bit, made his throat tighten.

Alex snorted. “Sure, if there was any chance that all of this crap could be crammed into twelve steps.” He looked tired, and kept his eyes on the machine, staring at it like he could will it to work faster with the power of his mind.

Dean watched him. He'd hoped that, after last night, after the way it'd been out on the fire escape, they might have been... He wasn't sure. Closer. Better, he'd hoped things might have been a little better between them. But he shouldn't have expected it to be that easy. Alex's walls were back in place, it felt like he was tolerating Dean's presence because he had to, and Dean suddenly felt like a stranger to him again.

Fine. Alex had every right to treat him like that. Dean just had to stick around until it wasn't true anymore. Until Alex remembered they knew each other.

If he ever remembered.

“Let me know if I can help,” he offered, shaking off thoughts that were starting to not make sense anyway in favour of trying to remind Alex that it would be different this time. Then he added hesitantly, “I mean, last night was pretty...” He cast around for a suitable word, but eventually settled on, “weird.”

“Sure,” Alex said with a huff that couldn’t quite be called a laugh. “Weird is one way to put it.”

He didn’t add anything, and Dean was just about to ask his question again, when Alex said, “I’m fine, okay? I’m as fine as I can be about all of this,” he added. He sounded pressured, and Dean dropped his head.

“Yeah, I know,” he said, quick to agree. “I just...you weren’t here when I woke up, and I...I was worried.” Until he said it out loud, he hadn’t even realised that was what was making him restless – one of the things that was making him restless – but it was. He kept his eyes on the floor for a moment longer, then finally managed to glance up.

Alex was staring at him with an achingly sad look on his face. For a moment it was like he was seeing him, seeing everything, seeing more than Dean probably wanted him to. It was like Alex could see the heart-stopping moment of panic Dean had experienced when he woke up alone, the bed cold and empty around him, again.

“I’m sorry,” Alex said softly. “I won’t let that happen again.”

Dean swallowed heavily, trying to get his heart under control. After a second, he managed to shrug, and said awkwardly, “I deserve it, right? Kinda poetic, or whatever.” His voice was rough.

But Alex shook his head vehemently, taking a step back. “No,” he said, fierce with denial. “No, I’m not doing that, I’m not trying to punish you, Dean. Jesus, you know that’s not what this is about.” He was upset, and his eyes were so goddamn reproachful, and Dean had wanted the walls to crack but not like this, and he wouldn’t have thought it was possible for him to feel _worse_. “Give me a break here,” Alex added, hurt.

“I know, I know, I’m sorry, okay?” Dean managed, rubbing a hand over his forehead like that would dull the ache behind his eyes. “I’m sorry, I’m just...I’m freaking out all the time and I can’t—“ He broke off, shutting his mouth before he could say something like _I can’t just reach out and touch you like I used to_. Instead he tried, “Everything is just...” He stopped again. Fuck.

“So, so fucked?” Alex finished for him, after a minute. He sounded upset, still, but like he was getting used to Dean being an asshole and saying the wrong thing. Dean wasn't sure if that was a good thing.

“That’s an understatement,” Dean agreed, relieved anyway. He wasn’t sure why, but for a second there, he’d felt like he was about to puke. Maybe he needed to make his own twelve-step list. Alex would be at the top of it, though.

Alex turned away, withdrawn and tired. His anger had faded, but there was a bit of that horrible blankness Dean hated creeping over his face again.

Before he could stop himself, Dean stepped forward and grasped Alex’s arm.

“I’m sorry, okay?” he said again. “I just…I want to help,” he said in a rush. “I want to be there, if there’s anything. You know? Anything I can do.” He wanted to grimace. God, that’d been practically incoherent. And awkward. And possibly pushy. “Or not,” he added quickly. “Whatever you want.”

Alex stared at him. Slowly and deliberately, he prised Dean’s fingers off his arm. Dean dropped his hand and stepped back, suddenly terrified that he'd somehow done something seriously, seriously wrong.

After a long frozen moment during which Dean wondered if he should just give up and leave before Alex could throw him out, wondered if he'd get the chance to ask what he did to screw up so bad, Alex said quietly, “Thanks.”

Dean’s gaze flew up, and he looked at him closely. Alex was breathing a little unevenly, and he was swallowing like he’d tasted something bad. But then he glanced at Dean anxiously.

“Really,” he said hoarsely. “Thanks for the offer. I don’t know...I don’t know.” He cut off like he wasn’t sure what the words should be, and briefly looked frustrated.

Dean waited. Alex’s skin was pale, and his eyes were still marked by exhausted dark circles. Dean would damn well wait until he figured out what he wanted to say. No pressure, no pushing.

When Alex stepped forwards, Dean dropped his eyes again and braced himself, expecting the worst.

***

Dean’s hand on his arm had cracked straight through the shell of not-thinking-about-it Xander had been struggling to rebuild around himself. The touch was light, but it was that arm, the one that he’d to check for knives only last night, the one that had stabbing pain going through it when she’d whispered in his ear.

He'd frozen, and it took everything he had not to physically throw Dean off of him and take off running. But he managed to restrain himself, to settle for easing Dean’s fingers off his arm.

But Dean took it the wrong way, and the bitch of it was, Xander couldn’t explain it to him. He had to leave Dean thinking it was him, not Xander and his problematic arm.

And worse, Dean was just trying to help. Trying to get close, trying to offer support. And maybe it was too soon for that, since Xander still had clear memories of all the days he spend alone last year, all the times when Dean wasn’t there, and a sick feeling in his stomach that was all about being left, being angry and betrayed.

It was disturbing enough how much the offer comforted him anyway. Even though it came as part of a tidal wave of unwanted memories, fear and bile, somehow it still comforted him.

He stared at Dean's bowed head helplessly, reining in the horror and trying to focus on that comforting feeling. Dean was trying to help, even though he had no idea what he was offering to help with. It made Xander wonder whether, if it did come out, if Dean ever found out how fucked up and damaged Xander really was...would he still offer like that? Would Xander want him to offer?

 _But he never has to know_ , Xander thought fiercely. He remembered the feeling from the night before, his decision to deal with it all by himself, and even though the thought of living made him tired, he felt bolstered yet again.

“Thanks,” he said, voice as even as he could make it. Dean looked up from his mortified study of the floor, but it was Xander's turn to drop his eyes. After a moment, he added, “Really. Thanks for the offer. I don’t know...” Shit, he didn’t know a lot of things. He tried again, hoping the words would come to him, but they didn’t.

Since talking had failed him yet again, Xander stepped forwards instead. He ignored his earlier fear and his reluctance to be touched or reach out to anyone; he managed to suppress it long enough to step forwards and take Dean’s hand in both of his.

Dean stared at Xander, studying him like the answer to whatever the question was would be written all over his face. And Xander let him; it was pointless. He had no answers. All he wanted to do was try.

It was a sudden feeling, tied up in his refusal to let the First win. He wanted her to be wrong, which meant he had to try. He also wanted to see if Dean could still give him as much comfort as he used to, even just by being there. Maybe that was stupid - maybe he should be running from Dean as fast as he could.

But the warm look, the one that was feeding Xander's addiction, crossed Dean's face again. Despite how unhappy Dean had looked only a moment earlier, it seemed it didn't take much effort from Xander to make him feel better.

Xander dropped his eyes again when the awe got to be a little too much. He didn’t deserve that look, didn’t deserve the soft, stupid-looking smile on Dean’s face. But he kept hold of Dean’s hand, and leaned close to soak up as much troubling comfort as he could.

Things were fucked up all over, but Dean apparently wasn’t going anywhere. Neither was Xander, so trying was really the only option he had left.

***

Dean wanted the moment to last forever. Alex was close enough that one of his boots had bumped Dean’s bare foot. He was practically leaning on Dean, and Dean leaned back. Their arms were pressed together, their hands entwined between them, and Dean had to fight hard not to drop his head forward and rest it on Alex’s shoulder.

Instead, he focused on Alex’s hands, on how warm they were around his own. His skin was smooth except for the rough calluses on his palms and fingers from handling weapons, and the contrast was so familiar. Dean let gratitude flood through him again, because Alex was _alive_.

They stood there, silent and still, both leaning against the kitchen counter. Alex never stopped looking a little worried, never lost the edge of pain and exhaustion he seemed to carry around, but Dean noticed a gradual smoothing-out, like some of the tension in him relaxed just a bit.

The coffee started hissing through the machine into the pot, breaking the moment. Alex turned to check on it and their hands unclasped, but it didn’t matter. Dean still felt better than he had that morning, better than he would have thought possible.

“Christ. How long does this thing have to take?” Alex muttered. The desperation in his voice was enough to make Dean pause.

“You okay?” he said automatically.

Alex gave him a disbelieving look, and Dean rolled his eyes at himself. “Sorry, sorry. I won’t ask again.”

Alex huffed. “I just want some coffee,” he said, with the plaintive whine of the under-caffeinated.

Dean grinned, and pulled himself up to sit on the counter.

“Or you could make us some food,” Alex suggested politely.

“Or I could make us some food,” Dean agreed, and jumped back down. “Cereal?”

“Sandwich, please,” Alex replied absently. Dean started poking around in the paper bags on the counter. He didn’t stop glancing up at Alex, though, and got so distracted he almost used Miracle Whip instead of peanut butter. He tried to concentrate, but he couldn’t always tear his eyes away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from a song by Rise Against.


	21. Monsters

Sam and John came in for cereal and sandwiches, respectively, but the coffee machine seemed to take twice as long as it should. Xander had to marshal his strength enough to separate himself from Dean. He focused on forgetting and ignoring, but couldn’t eat most of the sandwich Dean had made for him and left the room instead.

Xander pulled his box of stuff out of the hall closet, intent on finding his laptop. He hadn’t bothered with it since he’d arrived – Willow had used her own while she was here, and Sam had been using the one that lived in the apartment – but now he dug out his personal one and booted it up.

He got back to the kitchen just as the last drops of coffee hissed into the pot.

Sam choked on his first cup. “Jesus.”

“Uh huh,” Xander murmured, satisfied and drinking slowly. After high school, it’d taken him a while to move from hot chocolate to caffeine, but when he had, he’d gone all out. John tasted his gingerly, looking a little surprised.

Dean shook his head. “Man, I forgot your stomach was steel-plated. This stuff is diabolical.” He seemed oddly pleased, though, like he was glad Xander made coffee three time stronger than just about anyone else’s. He’d always complained about it in the past.

“Yep,” Xander agreed, still preoccupied with enjoying his coffee. “I was rationing it yesterday cause I thought we’d run out.”

His computer chirped with a new email. It was the transcription, and the first thing Xander did was forward it to the computer Sam was using, so they could all look at once.

After a moment or two, his cellphone rang, and he used it as an excuse to stop reading about the fires of hell and the eternal damnation that awaited the demon’s acolytes.

“G-man. Friendly little bit of writing, isn’t it?” he said evenly.

“Quite,” Giles said tightly. “I’ve read through it all again, paying closer attention now that you’ve made a positive identification, and much of this account fits with what you told me of the Winchester’s story.”

After a pause, Xander said, “You sound unhappier about that than you did before.”

“Yes, well,” he said. “Before you identified the creature yesterday, I thought we might be dealing with a family curse or demonic attachment to the bloodline. This is rather more serious than that.” Giles paused, the kind of pause that usually meant he was lost in thought.

A chill went down Xander’s spine. “What is it, Giles?” he asked softly.

“If this truly is the same demon, it’s very old and powerful, and not very much is known about its history. Based on what we do know, I believe its plans include more than just tormenting the Winchesters. I don’t like the fact that you’ve become involved in this.”

It was Xander’s turn to pause, as he digested that, or tried to. “Okay.” It wasn’t okay at all, but they didn’t need to talk about it. He could feel exhaustion creeping over him again, and embraced the numbing effect it had on his brain.

“And,” Giles went on slowly, hesitating in a way that meant he didn’t think Xander would like what came next. “As it can possess people so easily, we’ve been discussing whether or not it would be safe to...that is to say, if this demon or one of its followers were to capture a slayer, it could have access to all of her gifts, all of her strength.”

It took a moment for the implications to sink in. “Okay, that would suck.”

“Quite. Willow set up a warning system after what happened in Barcelona, to tell us if anything was influencing the slayers, and it should pick up this demon’s influence as well. But it won’t prevent it.”

Giles sounded apologetic, and it only took a second for Xander to catch on. “And you’d rather keep them away from me until you know for sure that they won’t go all Exorcist.”

He should be anxious. He should be freaking out that he’d be without slayer-strength backup. But he wasn’t. And he wasn’t sure how to feel about that, other than tiredly numb.

“It’s bad enough that the people you’re with are vulnerable to influence. We’re looking for a fool-proof way to guard against possession, and we’ll send it to you as soon as we find it,” Giles assured him. Then he added, “Don’t think for a moment that this means you’d be on your own, Xander. We’ll do everything we can; we just won’t assign you a slayer until we know she won’t be the demon’s next host.”

“Don’t worry, G-man, I totally get it,” Xander replied, running a hand through his hair. “That is one disaster in the making that I’d rather not have to deal with.”

He realised abruptly that this meant he wouldn’t have to deal with Faith or Buffy breathing down his neck, not for a little while, anyway. It felt like a silver lining, and he had to suppress a sigh of relief. The less all the different parts of his life collided, the better.

“I’m glad you understand,” Giles said, although he didn’t sound too happy about it. “And as you’re going to be temporarily without our physical back-up, I hope this means you’re going to be extremely careful.”

Xander frowned. “I will be.” He was. He didn’t know what would happen in battle conditions, but as long as nothing was directly trying to kill him, he’d be careful.

“I mean it. Regardless of your time with Dean in the past, we don’t actually know what the Winchester’s abilities are. We’ve never worked with them before, and their success rate against this demon is rather obviously lacking,” he said bitterly. “I want you to be very careful not to be a casualty of anyone’s inexperience.”

Giles was unknowingly echoing Xander’s argument from the previous evening, one it felt like he’d made _years_ ago. He had to swallow down the bile. “I’ll be fine, Giles,” he replied. He didn’t add anything; the Winchesters were right there, and he wasn’t about to start defending them where they could hear it. He wasn’t even sure if he _wanted_ to defend them. “So, the demon. How do we kill it?” he asked, hoping to change the subject.

Giles obviously wanted a more satisfactory answer than that, but he accepted Xander’s new subject and ran with it. “We have a few ideas, but I’d like to go over the transcription from that earlier book with you first.”

“Sure. Want me to put you on speakerphone?”

“Oh. Yes, alright.” Before Xander could move, Giles added, “Despite my reservations, I promise to be civil.”

“I appreciate the effort,” Xander replied seriously. He clicked the phone over to speaker, and headed over to the table to set it down. “Okay, Giles, you’re on.”

“Right,” Giles said, and then he addressed the room. “Good afternoon,” he said formally.

“Uh, hi,” Sam offered, surprised, and it looked like he was about to say more, but Giles launched into lecture-mode and Sam just started looking like he wanted to take notes.

“The text we’ve sent through to you is the transcription of an investigation report submitted to the Watcher's Council about three hundred years or so ago. The investigator, a Watcher by the name of Theodore Herbson, tracked a series of deaths and reports of Satanic behaviour through Britain, and then followed them to America when it was still the new world. He connected the events to a single creature, and we now believe this is your demon."

“Really?” Sam asked, surprised. “The demon is that old?”

“Older, in fact,” Giles answered, after a pause. “Herbson also linked this demon to another operating hundreds of years before, in Germany, which he believed moved in similar patterns. Unfortunately, the older books with the German accounts have since been lost, so we cannot confirm, but it seems quite likely that they are the same creature.” Giles paused.

Old and creepy. Xander sighed. He should have known. “What are the patterns? What was it trying to do?”

“The report is unfortunately inconclusive,” Giles replied. “It must be taken into account that the investigation was conducted several years after the events described, and Herbson himself notes that several of the witnesses are extremely unreliable. Some of his findings are, by his own admission, speculation."

"However, there is still some insight to be gained. As I said, Herbson was investigating demonic activity in Britain, specifically a series of house fires that had occurred years earlier and coincided suspiciously with electrical storms, unseasonal weather, excessive cattle deaths - all markers of demonic rituals. As he studied the patterns of these events, he happened to notice that there were young men and women of approximately the same age associated with each house, all of whom had recently left for the colonies."

"Herbson traced all of them to Maryland, and set out to investigate further. When he arrived, he discovered that all but one had recently died, and during the months prior to that, the villagers in the area had considered them all some kind of threat."

"The villagers were at first reluctant to discuss it with him, but eventually he persuaded some of them to talk. It seems the young people had joined forces, in a sense, and worked as a kind of gang. They stole, they refused to work. They physically tormented one of the village children, and I believe it is recorded that they killed and mutilated some livestock. The villagers began calling them ‘demonic children’, and ascribed the children’s behaviour to an actual evil influence. Many of the young people were put to death, and others were submitted to exorcisms that they did not survive.”

Xander digested that for a second. ‘Put to death’ was probably code for ‘burned at the stake’, and he tried not to wonder whether any innocent people had been mistaken for demons. “Okay, so how did he work out that the Crucible had something to do with the demon?”

“Well, the house fires were the strongest marker. Each caused the death of one or more people, which, when coupled with strange weather patterns and such, usually indicates the occurrence of black magic at the very least. It could also signify a sacrifice or demonic ritual. And as for the connection, the same pattern of death, fire and storms was apparently mentioned in the lost German texts about the demon. Herbson says the German children don't seem to have amounted to much, however. Most of them died before they reached adulthood.”

Xander furrowed his brow. Old and very, very creepy. “Is there anything else?”

Giles hesitated. “While he was in Maryland, Herbson managed to interview the last surviving child. She was spared for helping the villagers against the other children, and also managed to survive the exorcism they performed on her. She said she had dreamed of the demon, and the rendering in the book was based on her description. She said it told her what to do, and promised her riches. It seems that after the business with the livestock, her conscience troubled her enough to seek help from the villagers.”

“The final part of the text seems to recount, rather reluctantly, a rather histrionic interview with a very unreliable witness,” Giles continued. “One of the town’s former elders, who had been relieved of his duties because he apparently began to suffer from mental illness, claimed to have had an actual confrontation with the creature. Herbson met with him for an interview, but recounts that the elder was difficult to understand. Among other things, though, he said the demon told him that the events in the village had merely been a rehearsal, and it had plans that would doom the entire human race. The demon apparently mocked the villagers attempts to stop it, and said that if this was all humans were capable of, its plans would undoubtedly be successful.”

Giles paused again. “At this point the elder apparently descended into biblical rhetoric and promised that the God-fearing people of the colony of Maryland would be ready to rise up and thwart this creature again when it returned.”

Xander snorted. “I’m sure the God-fearing people of Maryland are all still just sitting around waiting to fight.”

“Yes, well. Herbson could apparently get nothing more out of him, and unfortunately the demon neglected to go into detail about exactly what its plans were or when they would be carried out. The investigation rather petered out after that. We haven’t yet found any more recent records of the demon, but given that it seems to have returned, I believe we can assume that ‘when’ is now. Our best course of action at the moment is probably to find the demon as quickly as possible and kill it. We can deal with whatever plans it has as we find out more.”

“I’ve always liked that plan,” John said, a hint of irritation in his voice. He’d been scrolling through the information in Giles’ email; Xander hadn’t been sure he was still listening but apparently he was.

“I’m so glad you approve,” Giles shot back dryly. “Now, as I explained to Xander, it’s a very old, powerful demon. While it is currently unlikely to be looking for you all on the hellmouth, I believe its presence there is the last thing we want. Given its ability to possess people, I would also prefer to keep this fight as far as possible from the slayers and their various abilities. I might send in Buffy or Faith to help once we’re sure they can’t become possessed, but we may not be able to.”

Xander waited for John to make another comment. When he didn’t, he looked over, only to see John staring at the screen, forehead furrowed. Whatever he was reading was making him furious.

When no-one said anything, Sam spoke up awkwardly. “Uh, that’s fine. I mean, we’d appreciate the help, but not if you think it’s a bad idea.”

Giles didn’t reply directly, but said, “Xander, we’ll support you from a distance for now. The less this demon knows about our involvement, the more capacity we’ll have to surprise it.”

Xander shrugged, one eye still on John. “Sounds okay to me, Giles.” He agreed with all of that. He also agreed with the part where Giles, Buffy, Willow and the entire Watcher’s Council wasn’t about to turn up on his doorstep.

“Do you have any ideas on _how_ we can kill it?” Dean asked, sounding fairly polite given the freakish news. He hadn’t said anything else so far – probably too afraid of being the focus of Giles’ attention.

“We’re searching for a weapon,” Giles replied, without missing a beat. “There are stories of some kind of blade, possibly a sword, which should work. We’ve also been reviewing more recent accounts of a gun.”

“The colt?” Xander said. “Don’t bother, they already found it and it’s out of bullets.”

“I see. Well, we’ll attempt to track down the blade for now. Stay where you are, Xander, Willow’s magic will protect you as long as you stay close to your apartment.”

Xander rolled his eyes but didn’t comment on everyone’s belief in his inability to do the sensible thing and take care of himself. Faced with exorcisms and people being burned at the stake, he figured he could probably get over it.

“About the book,” John interrupted, before Xander could say anything else. His voice was steely, and Xander’s stomach flipped. He gritted his teeth as the vision of a Giles vs John Winchester smackdown reappeared in his mind. Great. Just great.

More fighting was just what he needed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from a song by Blue Oyster Cult.


	22. Fahrenheit

“About the book,” John said coldly. He’d looked up from the text he’d been reading, although it’d been hard to tear his eyes away.

It was all there. Every pattern, every habit, every single piece of information he’d painstakingly collected. His entire life’s work, already there in a single volume. Already there, just waiting to tell someone all about the thing that’d killed his wife and destroyed his family.

“How long has the Council known about this?”

Prickling tension immediately filled the room, but John didn’t give a damn. Everything was in that book, and if _somebody_ had just done _something_...

Giles paused, then said offhandedly, “According to the front matter, the book was produced in 1678. The investigation was conducted some ten or twelve years before that.”

Sourness built in the back of John’s throat. “So you’re telling me the Council has known about this demon for three hundred and fifty years?”

Another pause, and Giles’ voice was wary when he replied. “Well, ‘known’ is a relative term. The book was in the archives, along with a hundred other accounts of various investigations that went nowhere.”

“Archives that they’re keeping a goddamn secret. I’ve spent twenty years putting this information together, and you’re telling me the Council has had it all along?” His voice grew louder as righteous anger built inside him. He couldn’t believe this.

“What would you have had them do?” Giles demanded, his goddamn British accent getting colder and colder with every word. “Publish it publicly and put it in the local library just in case you needed it?”

“They could have gotten off their asses and done something about it three hundred and fifty years ago,” John insisted.

Somebody could have done something. Mary would have lived. Everything would have been different. All of this could have been avoided. He thought he might crack open from the desperate fury the thought brought him. How could this have happened? How could they not have stopped it?

“Done something about a demon that no-one but a possessed girl and a crazy man had ever seen? About a demon none of them could find? Do you have any idea how many bloody accounts of demons the Council has? Aside from the official investigations, there are hundreds of creatures listed in books in the Council archive, and—“

John cut him off before he could go on. “Do you have any damn idea how many mothers have probably _died_ since this goddamn investigation? The patterns are _there_. How big does the body count have to be before you pay attention?”

“The body count is extremely regrettable. However, between vampires and the end of the world, the Council couldn’t exactly spare resources to track a demon that they weren’t sure even existed, not when they were up to their necks in demons that did. I really don’t think—“ Giles broke off abruptly. “I refuse to defend the Council to _you_ , of all people,” he went on stiffly. “You have the information now, regardless of how nice it would have been to have it yesterday.”

John bristled at the ‘you, of all people’. Superior, self-righteous bastard. What the hell did he get off? “Yeah, and unlike some people, I’m going to actually do something with it.”

“Like bring the demon to Xander’s doorstep?” Giles sniped. “If you’re quite finished questioning the Council’s dedication to the cause—“

“I don’t give a goddamn about your dedication to the cause,” John interrupted. “I want to know why no-one was out there hunting this thing down before it had a chance to kill my wife and destroy my family.”

“We had other problems.”

Xander’s statement cut through the argument like a knife. In the silence that followed, his glare – turned fully on John – was stony.

John froze, stunned and still furious. He’d forgotten Alex was there, forgotten about the others, forgotten how carefully he’d been trying to tread. Everything else had been swept away under the knowledge that people had known, and if they’d acted Mary could have lived.

“Xander,” Giles said tightly, but Xander didn’t let him continue. His hand was steady as he picked up the phone and turned off the speaker, and he didn’t look back as he went into the bedroom for a private conversation.

John could feel Dean’s stare, shocked and disbelieving, but he was still too angry for guilt. “I’m going for a walk,” he said gruffly. He grabbed his coat and when he slammed the door behind him, the room was still thick with accusatory silence.

***

“Giles,” Xander began, closing the bedroom door behind him. He could practically feel Giles’ anger through the phone.

“Xander, of all the _bloody nerve_.” Giles’ voice was quivering with outrage. “That man—“

“I know, alright?” He cut Giles off sharply, sharper than he’d meant to. But he could tell Giles was about to launch into a rant about John that would end with a list of all the reasons why Xander’s situation was unsatisfactory, and Xander didn’t think he could listen to it. Not when he had to work with the Winchesters, not when he didn’t really have any other choice.

“I know he’s out of line,” Xander went on. “He was angry about the book, and he had no cause to take that out on you. But can we please just ignore it?”

“ _Ignore it_? I can’t believe you’re defending him! When I think about what you’ve been through because of him, because of _all of them_ —Xander, if he’s been—hell, if he’s even been _rude_ to you—Put him back on the phone, I’d like to bloody well give him a piece of my mind,” Giles said bossily.

“I’m not gonna put him back on, and I am _not_ defending him, I’m the _last person in the world_ who would defend him,” Xander replied indignantly, appalled by the idea that he would defend John Winchester. “He’s overreacting and behaving like a jerk. But no matter how much he pisses you off, or me, I still have to work with him.”

“Not necessarily.” Giles said darkly.

“Oh, really? You want to review my options?” Xander replied, giving his frustration free reign. “What do you want me to do, go back to Africa? Or come to England? You think the demon won’t find me? And that’s not even the point,” he added hurriedly, because Giles might say yes and while Xander had thought that was an option only a day earlier, he wasn’t so sure now. He didn’t think he wanted to leave.

“What is the point, then? We don’t need his help, Xander.”

“His help isn’t the reason I’m still here,” Xander reminded him tightly. There was a pause, and he took the opportunity to go on without interruption. “Dean says he’s chosen. Dean says he chose me, and he won’t go with John if he leaves,” he added, trying not to think about whether he actually believed the words he was saying.

“And?” Giles said impatiently.

“And I never wanted to be the reason Dean lost his father,” Xander said with a sigh. That was something he’d believed a long time ago, at least, so it was basically true. So small in the face of what he was actually dealing with that it was almost a non-issue, but still true. Kind of. He cleared his throat and mentally dragged himself back to the point. “No matter how much of a dick John is, I don’t want Dean to lose him,” he added, trying to convince himself as much as Giles.

It was one thread in the complicated mess that was his life at the moment, at least. Hopefully Giles would believe him.

Giles had hesitated, giving Xander time to get anxious, and when he eventually replied his voice was disbelieving. “I can’t believe you feel that way. After everything he’s—“

“I know, alright?” Xander cut him off, unable to listen to it. “I know how fucked up this whole thing is, but I’m doing the best I can. Whether you like it or not, I’m going to work with him. I’m gonna do that until Dean says otherwise, because it’s one less thing I have to feel shitty about. _I don’t care_ , Giles. I don’t care if he’s here, and I’ve got enough other stuff to deal with without the two of you fighting,” he said, strained. He knew he sounded desperate, but he couldn’t quite keep it out of his voice.

He did care, of course. In fact, he hated a lot of things about John Winchester. But not enough to force Dean to make his choice a reality, that part was true. He really didn’t want to deal with that guilt, not on top of all the rest.

“Tell that to him,” Giles replied, and he actually sounded sulky.

“I plan to,” Xander huffed out, wanting to roll his eyes.

They were silent for a few stony moments, but all the irritation had drained out of Xander, leaving only a headache behind. He pinched the bridge of his nose, and muttered, “Christ, I knew this was going to happen.” From a purely practical standpoint, if Giles and John refused to work together, what the hell was he going to do? Maybe the whole thing had been doomed from the beginning. Maybe he never should have gotten out of bed.

Giles apparently heard his murmur, though, and after a moment he offered what sounded almost like an apology. “I really had intended to give him the benefit of the doubt, as it were, to try and forget what you’d told me about him and be civil,” he admitted, still sounding a bit sulky, like a teenager told to get along with people he didn’t like.

Xander decided he would take what he could get. “Yeah, well,” he said with a sigh. “You know, I’ve seen your version of civil, and this isn’t actually that far off.”

“Yes, quite,” Giles agreed self-deprecatingly, apparently returning to adulthood. “I also understand that you want to spend time with Dean. I do understand that, Xander,” he reassured. After a slight hesitation he asked tentatively, “Does he share his father’s frustration? He didn’t say much, but did you notice whether or not he seemed to agree with John?”

“No, of course not. He knows you’ve got nothing to do with any of this,” Xander said dismissively. Dean had spent the argument looking progressively more and more horrified, and had shot several apologetic looks across the table.

After a moment, he went on absently, “As far as I can tell, he’s not so much with the obsessive hunting of the demon for revenge anyway. He seems...well, he wants the thing dead, of course, but he doesn’t care who does it. He’d probably stay in Cleveland while someone else dealt with it, if he thought he could keep me safely locked away with him,” Xander admitted.

“Finally showing some sense, then?” Giles approved.

“Giles,” Xander protested.

“I was joking, Xander. How are things otherwise, with him? You said earlier that you slept?”

 _Back to that_ , Xander thought, and huffed impatiently. “Yeah, Giles, I told you, I slept.” Giles still sounded so surprised by the concept, but nightmares aside, Xander didn’t think his sleeping habits were really all that important. Not right now, anyway. Whatever, he didn’t want to talk about it.

Giles picked up on the stonewalling, and grudgingly said, “Fine, fine, we don’t have to talk about that now. And as I said last night, I’ll support you in whatever you decide to do. If you say he’s a positive presence for you at the moment, well...that’s fine. I hope he’ll defend you against that father of his.”

Xander rolled his eyes again. “I can defend me against John, Giles. He was just pissed off about the book, and that’s probably just because he’s stressed out about the demon.” He couldn’t believe he had to deal with this. If everyone could just _ignore_ each other…

“How stressed?” Giles asked, interrupting that thought before it could go any further. “This demon is powerful, Xander, and it’s going to be difficult enough to destroy it without having to tiptoe around John bloody Winchester.”

Xander wanted to roll his eyes again, but instead considered the question carefully. He didn’t want to escalate the John-Giles situation, but at the same time he wasn’t about to lie for John, not to Giles. He was lying about too much other stuff already.

“Well,” he began. “According to Dean, he’s been passionate about stopping it for as long as Dean can remember. But I already told you that. And I guess that means it makes sense that the lack of weapons or clues or, you know, _a plan_ is probably stressing him out.” He paused to think. “The whole thing with Dean and me probably hasn’t helped his blood pressure, but he’s been friendly about it so far and I think we can believe him when he says that, despite what Dean thought, he doesn’t actually care.”

After a moment, he added, “He might be stressed because Dean doesn’t seem to like him all that much right now, but I doubt he’s admitting that to himself.” A few more seconds of fruitless thought, and Xander said helplessly, “I don’t know, Giles. I don’t know how much tiptoeing we’ll really have to do. Does it matter?”

“It might, it might not,” Giles said. “I just want to get a feel for what to expect from him. When you say passionate, what do you mean exactly?”

“Dedicated. Anyone using the word ‘obsessed’ would not necessarily be out of line,” Xander added uneasily. He was judging on what little he’d seen, which felt a little unfair even if John was a man he didn’t actually like that much. “I haven’t seen much of it first hand, really, unless you factor in the concept that a twenty-year search is the whole reason he’s here.”

“Yes, you’re quite right.” There was a slight pause, and Giles’ voice suddenly turned deadly serious, the kind of serious Xander usually only heard during apocalypse season. “Xander, I want you to promise me something. Do not get between that man and his obsession. Do you understand me? At the moment, you’re the closest thing to bait that we know about, and I don’t believe he’ll hesitate to use you.”

Xander was stunned. He’d known Giles was angry, but the complete mistrust the warning showed was a little unexpected.

He couldn’t deny that the same thought had crossed his mind, though. Was still crossing his mind; he’d been planning to think pretty carefully about anything John might ask him to do over the next few days.

“Yeah, I’ve thought about that too,” he replied slowly. “I’ll be careful, but I’m really not sure that he’d go there, Giles. Not without asking, and not if there’s another way to find the thing. The only thing he cares more about than the demon is Dean and Sam, and Dean...Dean would never forgive him.”

It was the other side of the story when it came to John Winchester. As much as Xander almost hated the man, he couldn’t deny it.

And, for some reason, admitting that suddenly sent a strange twist through Xander’s heart. Dean would never forgive John if something happened that John could have prevented. Hell, Xander suspected Dean wouldn’t forgive him even if it was something that John _couldn’t_ have prevented.

Because Dean wasn’t going anywhere. He was in this to the bitter end. And Xander had known already, had come up against it not thirty minutes earlier in the kitchen. But maybe it’d taken some time to sink in, because he was only just being hit with what it meant.

When had he stopped doubting Dean’s loyalty? Only last night, he’d been _so sure_ Dean would leave with his father. Even that morning, he’d been thinking of Dean as a flight risk. Hell, their entire relationship had been defined by Dean arriving and leaving, and all of that was because of John. Why did he suddenly feel so convinced? When had he become so sure?

It had only been two days, for Christ’s sake. Two nights. Whatever. And they’d been asleep for half of it.

Somehow, his belief that Dean was telling the truth, that the look in his eyes was genuine and would probably result in estrangement from his father if John fucked up, was firm enough to surprise him. And admitting it was simultaneously amazing and terrifying, because it felt like he was that much closer to...to something.

He shut his eyes. He wasn’t going to think about it.

Then Giles said softly, “He wouldn’t be the only one.” And Xander’s throat tightened.

It wasn’t fair, really, for Giles to say stuff like that. It blindsided Xander every time. It took a few deep breaths to get himself under control, but he managed. “I’m gonna be okay, Giles,” he promised softly. “I’m gonna get through this intact, I think.”

“Good. I’m going to hold you to that,” Giles said gravely.

And just like that, there was another thing tying him down. It felt more like one more thing keeping him from being swept away, from hurtling over the edge into the abyss.

Xander cleared his throat, trying to collect his scattered thoughts. When in doubt, change the subject. “Okay. Okay, so. Let’s go back to the demon. I’m going to handle the in-laws, and you’re going to look for a weapon, right?”

“In-laws. How disturbing. Please don’t call them that again,” Giles muttered. “Yes, I believe Lewisham mentioned something from one of the more recent German compendiums, perhaps a leftover account from one of the destroyed texts. I’ll follow it up.”

Xander didn’t know who Lewisham was, but he didn’t really care. “Do you want us to go through the rest of the books? Sam’s been on the internet all day, is there anything online?”

“Not that I’m aware of. And the other volumes I sent over with the girls were accounts of other investigations. Now that you’ve identified this demon, they won’t be of any use.”

Xander was sure there was something he was forgetting. “Oh, hey, speaking of the internet, apparently Dean only came here because Sam found my name and address online somewhere,” he said with a frown. “Which wigs me out for a couple of reasons, but should we do something about that? I know how tech-savvy most demons aren’t, but, I don’t know, is it a risk?”

It took Giles a moment to reply. “Yes, probably. Are you going to speak to Willow? I would ask her to do something about it.”

Xander considered the question. “Yeah, she was my next phone call,” he finally said, subdued. “Explaining this is not going to be fun, and I’m nominating you for back-up if she needs to call anyone else for a second opinion,” he warned.

He could hear the grimace in Giles’ voice. “Yes, I see. I shall prepare myself.”

“Good call. I’m gonna go. I haven’t heard anything from the main room in a while, and it’s possible Dean’s committed father-cide. I’d better go check on the state of the carpeting.”

“You do that. I’ll speak to you later.”

After they’d hung up, Xander just breathed for a moment. His head felt like whirlwind, and he needed a second to catch up.

He stared at the bedroom door for a moment, but despite what he’d told Giles, he wasn’t ready to go back out there yet. He stayed where he was, sitting on the bed, taking a moment before he had to go back out and face them all.

Before he had to go back out and face Dean, armed with the brand new knowledge of how well the warm looks and three words were working, how they were reeling him in further and faster than he ever expected. How they were making him forget how angry he was.

Fuck. Fuck, he didn’t want to think about that. He didn’t want to think about it _like_ that. He didn’t...he didn’t...fuck, he just _didn’t know_. He didn’t know what to do, or how to react. Fuck.

Change the subject, he told himself. Next item on the list.

Which was probably John. Fucking John. It’d be easier if Xander didn’t understand _why_ he’d been so upset. Twenty years, and it was all in the book the whole time. Even with his own conflicting feelings about Mary, Xander had to admit that would be tough.

Which didn’t mean he had any right to say any of that to Giles. Xander sighed, and scrubbed a hand through his hair. God, John was a pain in the ass. And kind of a son of a bitch.

But Xander could probably ignore this particular little episode if he had to, if it would make things easier. _If it would make things easier for Dean_ , a little voice in his head told him, but he ignored that, too.

Willow, though. Xander knew he wouldn’t be able to ignore Willow. He had to call her, had to tell her. And he had to lie some more about the cemetery. The temptation to climb out the window, scale the fire escape and, well, _escape_ , was suddenly stronger than ever.

If only it didn’t mean leaving Dean behind. Xander briefly indulged in a fantasy where Dean came with him. They could leave all the mess behind and run away to San Francisco.

No, not today. One thing at a time, he reminded himself, closing his eyes and breathing deeply. And before he could talk himself out of it, he hit speed dial one on his phone.

It rang. He kept his eyes closed, although suddenly he wasn’t dreading the conversation. It’d be a relief to talk to Willow, even if he had to lie. Even without knowing about the cemetery, she’d probably be able to help him figure out what was going on in his head. She’d always been good at that.

It rang and rang. Then went to voicemail.

He hesitated, then hung up without leaving a message.

It didn’t matter, he told himself. He didn’t need to talk to her right now, he’d be okay. He could talk to her later. He could breathe deep and hold on to his patience and see how this all shook out. He could keep going, no matter what happened next. Just one thing at a time.

He steeled his shoulders, stood up and headed for the bedroom door.

***

Sam was still fuming in his seat when Alex came back in the room. Dean was fuming in the kitchen, unable to sit still while Alex wasn’t in the room, and pissed at John besides. For his part, Sam couldn’t believe what had just happened. Well, he could _believe_ it, but that sure as hell didn’t make it okay.

God, it was like John took two steps forward with this whole situation, with Dean and Alex and the demon and everything, and then sabotaged it all by taking five gigantic steps back. Too much more, and Dean was probably going to kill him.

Dean stopped slamming cabinet doors and came out of the kitchen as soon as Alex closed the bedroom door behind him. Sam didn’t even have to look to know he was panicked.

“I’m sorry about Dad,” Dean apologised, before Alex could even open his mouth. “He’s—“

“It wasn’t your fault,” Alex said, cutting him off tightly. He looked around, then asked, “Where is he, anyway?”

Sam frowned, and studied Alex closely. He was frowning too, and looked a little tense, but he didn’t seem as angry as Sam would have been after a little display like that.

“He left,” Dean said flatly.

Alex’s gaze whipped around, and he stared at Dean. “He left? What do you mean he left? Is he coming back?”

“I don’t know,” Dean said with a bitter laugh. “I’m not sure I give a shit, either.”

“Oh,” Alex said, watching Dean awkwardly. “Look, I can understand why he’s upset,” he added carefully, after a moment. “The Council had the information and to John it looks like they didn’t do anything with it. I’m pretty sure I’d be angry too, if it was me.”

Dean stared at Alex, who looked as though he was trying to tell Dean something. When Alex kept talking, Dean just kept on staring, and Sam couldn’t blame him. He was shocked, too.

“So I get it, okay?” Alex added. “He shouldn’t have said that to Giles, but...I get it.”

Sam realised that it was a message. Alex was trying to make it clear that he would give John a second chance if he showed up again, that John hadn’t fucked things up completely and Alex wasn’t about to throw them all out.

“You get it?” Dean said, disbelieving. “Well, that’s great, but I don’t. We’re asking you for _help_ , and he’s... I’m so pissed off at him right now.” He looked like he was seconds away from grinding his teeth in frustration.

Alex just shrugged, the casual gesture at odds with the slight frown on his face. “Okay. I mean, the blame game should be the last thing on his mind, especially since the person he should really be blaming is...er, the demon, who’s not really a person,” he babbled, waving a hand awkwardly in the air. “But I’m not...I’m not, like...I get it,” he finished helplessly.

Dean stared at him suspiciously, but Alex kept up the indifferent-with-a-touch-of-concern look. Sam stared too, a little unable to believe this was for real. Surely, after everything his father had done to Alex, there was no way he could be this calm about John insulting a man that Dean said was the closest thing Alex had to a father?

Dean finally looked away, looking down in a gesture Sam knew his brother used to get space to think. Sam tore his gaze from the way his brother’s jaw clenched in frustration and looked back at Alex just in time to see his expression crack. It was quick, but the sheer exhaustion lurking just below the surface of his control was revealed, just for a second. And then buried just as quickly, as Alex kept his eyes anxiously on Dean.

Not uncaring, then, Sam realised. Just too tired, too overwrought to hold on to it. Still too worried that Dean was going to leave. And probably feeling like there was too much other stuff going on to spend any extra energy being angry at John.

Which wasn’t exactly better, but made a lot more sense.

Worry twisted in Sam’s gut as he added this to the evidence that Dean was right, that Alex shouldn’t be pushed. And suddenly he was even angrier at John, who’d been doing most of the pushing so far. Angry on Alex’s behalf. God, his father was such a stubborn _pain in the ass_.

Dean eventually looked up again, and Alex quickly schooled his face even more, looking even calmer. Damn, he was good at faking it. It would have been impressive, except for the way it totally freaked Sam out.

“Whatever you say,” Dean said hesitantly, although he studied Alex’s face and didn’t seem totally fooled by Alex’s indifference. “You alright?” he asked. “You’re all...” Sam hid a surprised grin as Dean leaned in to press a couple of fingers against the slight line between Alex’s eyebrows, the only remaining visible evidence of his stress.

The gesture was obviously something Dean had done before, or used to do a lot, because Alex raised his eyebrows but gave Dean a kind of long-suffering half-smile and roll of his eyes. It was adorable.

“Yeah, no, it’s just...I tried to call Willow and she wasn’t there. I really need to talk to her about all of this,” he admitted, subdued.

“Ah,” Dean said uneasily, and dropped his hand. “What are you going to tell her?”

Alex paused. “Everything? She needs to know about the demon, and she needs to know about you. So…everything.” Sam frowned again. There was something slightly shifty in Alex’s expression, which didn’t really make sense. Maybe he was just nervous about the conversation?

Dean didn’t notice it, just grimaced and nodded. “Yeah, sure, I get it. Let me know if I can…if there’s anything…” It was his turn to wave a hand awkwardly in the air, and he looked a little sick at the prospect.

“Sure,” Alex said with a raised eyebrow. “If she wants someone else to yell at, I’ll happily pass the phone over.”

Dean smiled darkly and said, “Pity Dad’s not here. He could use some yelling.”

Sam snorted, deciding it was finally safe to join the conversation. “Might not be a good idea if you’re trying to win her over.”

“Good point,” Alex agreed. “So anyway, I feel like my coffee to stress ratio isn’t quite balanced this morning, so I’m just gonna...” he trailed off, edging towards the kitchen and unable to hide the look of longing.

“Don’t drink too much of that stuff, you’ll be bouncing off the walls,” Dean said, deliberately taking his seat at the table again, even though Sam could tell he was actually desperate to follow Alex into the kitchen. “Or don’t you remember what happened the last time you drank too much coffee? I had to convince the cops on Polk Street that you weren’t actually high, just wired all to hell.”

Alex stopped and stared at Dean in disbelief. “You call that _convincing_? We both ended up handcuffed to a police car while they tried to track down _our_ dealer. ”

“Hey, I picked the lock on the cuffs,” Dean insisted, looking offended. Sam laughed out loud, but didn’t miss the way Alex had almost grinned outright at Dean, the way his shoulders looked momentarily lighter as he left the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from a song by At The Drive In.


	23. Strung from your Ribcage

Xander’s momentary good mood faded fast in the relative privacy of the kitchen, and he leaned heavily on the counter by the sink, staring out the window. Dean hadn’t followed him like Xander half-expected he would. Half- _hoped_ he would.

He’d come out of the bedroom, trying not to have an anxiety attack about the fact that Willow hadn’t answered the phone, and Dean’s worry had hit him over the head like a blunt instrument. John was gone, but Dean seemed more worried about whether Xander was going to throw him out than he was about his father.

He’d been shocked, struck yet again by the revelation he’d had in the kitchen and what it meant. Dean wasn’t going to leave. He wouldn’t forgive John if something happened to Xander. He might not forgive John starting now, if John didn’t apologise. Or didn’t come back.

Xander wanted to wince at the thought, but the pre-emptive regret sank away in the face of the real problem.

Dean wasn’t going to leave.

Xander wanted to raise his hands to massage his temples or something, try and ease the headache. He wanted to reach over and pour himself some coffee like he’d said he was going to. But he was little worried that if he let go of the counter he’d give in to the urge to sink to the floor and curl up around the sick feeling in his stomach.

Dean wasn’t going to leave.

It wasn’t the truth or untruth of it that was freaking him out, it wasn’t whether or not it happened. It was the fact that he believed it wouldn’t. He believed Dean was telling the truth, he believed it _more_. More than he had yesterday, more than he had that morning, more than he had even an hour ago.

Fuck. _Fuck_. He didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to admit it to himself, but he couldn’t stop. It was already there, he knew the signs, he knew how it felt. Maybe he’d been ignoring it as part of all the other shit he’d been deliberately not paying attention to, but being in the same room as Dean for even a few minutes was enough to make it sparklingly clear.

Every second, he was getting closer and closer to letting Dean off the hook, letting go of the past year. For all his maybes and I’ll-think-about-its, he was pretty much gone. Already. After two days.

It was so fucking pathetic.

And utterly, utterly terrifying. It was too fast, he had no control over it, he didn’t think he could stop. Fuck, he was in so much trouble.

He gripped the counters a little bit tighter and tried to breathe. When the panic didn’t fade, he managed to prise one hand loose long enough to fumble his phone out and speed dial Willow again. Fuck, he needed to talk to her. He needed to talk to _someone_.

Voicemail again. _Damn it_.

His disappointment spurred him to let go of the counter altogether and wrap his arms around himself. Willow wasn’t there, and he knew Buffy was unavailable for at least another day, and everything suddenly felt a lot harder than it had five minutes ago. Xander turned away from the window, feeling weirdly exposed, and hunched in on himself as he stared at the floor. Hopefully no-one – _Dean_ – would come in and see him quietly freaking out like this.

It was too much. Dean. John, and Sam and the demon. Willow off the radar, Giles amazingly supportive but still not the opinion he wanted the most.

The cemetery, and the way his sense of self-preservation had apparently disintegrated while he hadn’t been paying attention. _Deliberately_ hadn’t been paying attention. Not only his physical safety, either, he’d apparently decided his emotional safety was also an unnecessary life accessory.

Fuck, he was such an idiot, he though hysterically, and finally gave in to the desire to do the head-in-his-hands thing. It didn’t help as much as he would have hoped. He wanted to laugh, he wanted to scream a little bit. But instead he just breathed and tried not to do either.

They were just outside, and the last thing he wanted was their attention, their scrutiny.

Coffee, he thought, taking a deep breath and seizing on the first thing he could think of that might be remotely the same as it was a week ago. He would drink some coffee, be tense in the kitchen for another five minutes, then he’d go back into the other room and act natural. He’d read some of the damn books; he didn’t care if the information in them was useless, he needed something to do that wasn’t talking to the Winchesters. If he could avoid that for the next hour or something, he might be okay.

He’d read books, and when enough time had passed, he’d escape to the bedroom. No-one would have to know. He wouldn’t panic, he wouldn’t fall apart. In half an hour, he’d try to call Willow again, and he’d keep calling until she answered.

He had a plan. He could do this.

It still took five minutes before he could bring himself to unwind his arm from around his body, before he could bring himself to reach out for the fucking mugs.

When he was finally successful, he gripped the cup in his hand and stopped to breathe again. He closed his eyes and told himself not to panic.

He could survive the next hour. Probably.

 

***

 

Dean sat at the table and tried to concentrate. He tried to pretend he wasn’t straining for the sound of Alex shuffling around in the kitchen, the sound of cabinets closing or coffee cups clinking that would mean Alex was moving.

And he couldn’t hear anything, so maybe the universe was punishing him for being a stalker. But it was also making him freak out again, just a little. Alex had been alone in there for what felt like ages, and Dean didn’t know what he was doing.

He wanted to get up and go in and let Alex yell at him again if he wanted to. He also wanted to give Alex space, because Dean had been in his face for two days now, John had been yelling at Giles, and Sam...Sam hadn’t really done anything wrong but Alex was trapped with them, and he was probably only in the kitchen because there wasn’t any coffee out on the fire escape and what if he wanted to be left alone to think?

Dean didn’t want to intrude. Well, that wasn’t true, all he really wanted was to just be in Alex’s proximity all the time, even if it meant following him around from room to room. But he knew it probably wouldn’t help anything.

A knock at the door dragged Dean back to reality, and despite what happened the last time he answered it, he went over. It was John.

Dean turned away, not making much effort to muffle the angry noise he made.

John came inside, shutting the door behind him. “I know, alright? Dean? I was just upset about the book. I’ll apologise to Alex.”

Dean turned back, arms crossed, in time to see his father rub a hand nervously across the back of his neck. “You’ll apologise to _Giles_ ,” he corrected angrily. “For fuck’s sake, Dad. We’re asking for his _help_.” Why was that so hard for John to get?

“I know, I know,” John said, looking at him with an expression Dean could only describe as resigned and slightly terrified, like he knew he’d fucked up but this time he was worried it couldn’t be fixed. It was unsettling, to see such an unfamiliar look on his father’s face. Even though it was totally justified, he thought darkly.

Dean could have said more about the whole thing, but he let it go with a huff of dissatisfaction. He paced across the floor again, unable to keep his gaze from flicking over to the entrance to the kitchen again and again.

“What’s going on?” John asked, obviously noticing that Alex was gone and Dean was preoccupied.

Dean didn’t reply. After a moment, Sam said with a frown, “Nothing. Alex is in the kitchen.”

As if on cue, Alex appeared. Dean raked his eyes over him, and tried not to let the panic show on his face when he took in how tired and pissed off Alex looked.

Alex was looking defiantly at John, though and with the raise of a single eyebrow, he seemed to say, ‘well?’

John only hesitated for a moment. “I’m sorry. I overreacted.”

He seemed sincere. Dean was suspicious, because he knew a huge part of John believe in ‘anything it takes’ when it came to the demon, a part of him that was probably still furious that the Watcher’s Council hadn’t shared their information. And yeah, Dean could admit that it would have been great for Dad to have known all this stuff about the demon twenty years ago, instead of spending their lives searching for it.

But Alex had a point when he said there was no use blaming people, no use freaking about what _would_ have been great.

For his part, Alex eyed John stonily for another moment or two, then nodded, apparently delivering on his unspoken promise to Dean that John would get ignored this time. Dean was still amazed by it, by the leniency John didn’t deserve, that _Dean_ didn’t deserve.

As Alex shifted awkwardly in the tense silence that’d sprung up, and as Dean noticed the blankness in Alex’s expression, he felt even worse, even more unworthy.

It was the same blankness, the same brittle kind of self-control that had been in Alex’s eyes for the past two days. It made Dean question his right to be here, made him _terrified_ that he was just making whatever it was _worse_. How much more could Alex take before he cracked?

Alex’s shifting became purposeful, and he resolutely turned his back on John and sat at the table again. Dean followed without a second look at his father, feeling anxious and useless, because he had no idea what to do.

He wasn’t about to mention it or ask questions in front of John and Sam, he wasn’t stupid. But was there really nothing he could do but watch? Watch, and run interference if Alex... Well, if he wanted to do _something_. Dean had no idea what _something_ could possibly be. But he would, he’d put a stop to it if he even saw the slightest twitch, he knew that.

He wasn’t clear on what ‘it’ was, either, but that didn’t matter.

Behind him, John was hesitating, apparently waiting for some other kind of response. But Alex had his head down, already reading, and Dean sure as hell wasn’t going to say anything. Sam was glaring, so eventually John gave in and sat as well.

They settled in, and silence fell heavily across the table. Apart from his own anxiety, it wasn’ttotall awkward. It wasn’t even the tensest things had been since they all got there. But as Dean pretended to read – he wasn’t sure if his book was even in English, and he didn’t actually care – he noticed it gradually becoming claustrophobic, blanketing, with too many things no-one was saying piling up between all of them.

Maybe it was just him. But as he watched Alex’s shoulders notch higher and higher, caught his glances flickering to his peripheral a few times like he was checking over his shoulder, Dean started to think it wasn’t.

He gritted his teeth and waited.

He wanted to break it, to ease the tension, but suddenly he had no idea how. He’d said the wrong thing so many times today. And fuck, hopefully John wouldn’t try, he’d been doing even worse than Dean.

Fuck. Dean waited helplessly for an answer to come to him, keeping one eye on Alex the whole time.

 

***

It was harder than he’d expected. Xander felt trapped, like he was going to crack and they were all going to stare at him while he did it. He kept his eyes steadily on his book, even though he hadn’t turned a page in five minutes and he was pretty sure Dean had been watching him close enough to tell.

Dean was watching him. Even when he wasn’t actually looking, every molecule of his attention was pointed squarely in Xander’s direction. Worried, anxious, like Xander was freaking him out just by breathing.

But Xander wasn’t doing anything, so unless Dean was suddenly psychic, there was no way he could know Xander had just about had a panic attack in the kitchen.

Yeah, he had to keep telling himself that. Fuck, it was probably written all over his face.

Xander stared blindly at the pages in front of him, wondering what to do. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could take, and he could feel their expectation pressing on him, like they were waiting for him to say something.

He could feel John’s awkwardness, half-apology, half-trying-not-to-put-a-foot-wrong. He was trying to ignore it; he’d tell Giles John’d apologised, listen to Giles’ righteous indignation for a while, and hopefully that would be the end of it. And when he tried to be glad John hadn’t actually left, it seemed a little too far down on his list to really make an impact.

Because right now, Dean had moved back into first place. Up until now, he’d been the only thing making Xander feel remotely better, but suddenly he was making all the hair on the back of Xander’s neck stand on end. Not because he was staring – although he was; he was staring so hard Xander could practically feel it on his skin – but because the more Xander realised he trusted Dean, trusted him to stay, trusted in those three words...

The more he realised he shouldn’t.

It was too fast, way too fast for Xander to be feeling like the two of them were a done deal, like letting Dean back in was so damn inevitable. What the fuck was he thinking?

Without examining the impulse too closely, Xander raised his head so he could study Dean. He wanted to see some kind of sign that this was all a bad idea, that Dean didn’t mean it, that Xander was crazy to even be thinking about it.

Dean’s eyes had been lowered, but when he realised Xander was looking, he lifted his head to look back, and their eyes met for a moment that stretched.

Dean was nervous; Xander could tell that much just by looking at him. He was nervous, upset, tense, and probably panicking a little still. He obviously didn’t know what Xander was looking for, and shifted uneasily even as he tried not to look away, tried to bear up under the scrutiny.

And Xander hated it, hated that Dean was feeling bad. At the same time, he hated the fact that he even cared.

Dean had left him, and as much he felt like he was forgetting, he wasn’t, not really. The year without was still there, still made his stomach twist. _Dean doesn’t love you, Alex_. That was still there too, even though it was apparently a lie. Could Dean’s three words ever make it better? He still didn’t know the answer to that one.

Xander dropped his eyes again, suppressing a grimace. This was so fucked. His headache was grinding behind his eyes, coffee wasn’t helping at all, Willow’s absence felt like an itch, and Dean was confusing him so much he wasn’t sure if he could stand to look at his face for another second. He felt like he was drowning.

Time, he remembered. He’d asked for time, asked if they could take it slow, and Dean had agreed. He’d agreed, and said again and again that Xander could do whatever he wanted, take all the time he wanted and Dean would go with it.

Maybe that was the thing he should cling to. Take deep breaths, be patient, stop worrying about it so much. He could do it, he could work it out, he promised himself.

The panic receded slowly.

Xander barely registered John opening his mouth to finally say something when his phone rang, a shrill interruption.

“Giles?” he answered, grateful to be able to focus all his attention on the call.

As Giles spoke, though, his stomach cramped with anxiety.

They’d confirmed the location of the weapon. It was on the west coast, probably LA, and could be ready for collection sometime in the next day or two. The question from Giles was, did Xander feel up to going to get it, or did he want Giles to send someone else?

Xander’s mind started racing. “No, I’ll do it,” he eventually managed.

“Are you sure?”

He did hesitate, but only for a moment. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

Giles didn’t reply, obviously about to point out how unsatisfactory that idea was, but Xander went on before he could get there. “Look, can I call you back in a minute? I want to make a few calls.”

Giles agreed reluctantly, and Xander hung up. He stared at his phone for a second, totally shocked. His head was spinning with the possibilities, but as soon as Giles asked him if he wanted to go retrieve the weapon, a single idea had risen above all the other noise in his head, and he didn’t know if he should embrace it or run screaming.

“Alex?” Dean asked anxiously, and it was enough to break Xander out of his trance. He slammed his book shut and stood, ignoring the myriad of questions in Dean’s eyes.

“I’ll be back, I’ve got some calls to make.” He hadn’t bothered checking the clock, fuck the plan. He headed to the bedroom without looking back, frowning deeply at the prospect of going out on the road with the Winchesters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from a song by Biffy Clyro.


	24. The First Breath You Take After You Give Up

Xander closed the bedroom door behind him and paced quickly across the room. The room ended; he paced back, feeling a little like was going to come out of his skin. He stared down at his phone for a second, but despite what he’d said he had no idea who to call. He didn’t want to try Willow, didn’t want to get her voicemail again. That could wait.

Go on the road with the Winchesters. It was possibly the craziest idea he’d ever had, and he really wasn’t sure how to feel about it.

He paced across the room again. He needed to think rationally about this. It sounded like the worst idea he’d ever had, and Giles was never, ever going to agree. But as soon as Giles had said they’d found the weapon and it had to be retrieved, it had come to mind as the obvious solution to a number of problems.

Go on the road with the Winchesters. Fuck, he thought, pacing back. He really was crazy.

Problem number one was Dean, and being close to Dean. Which, up until now, had been working out for him, but now it felt like it was maybe starting to cloud his judgement, starting to hurt instead of help. And okay, travelling together in confined spaces wasn’t exactly going to fix that.

Problems number two through fifty, or whatever the hell number he was up to, on the other hand...

It could solve the problem of John Winchester, especially. If they all went after the weapon together, John would get to hunt the demon, Dean wouldn’t have to be separated from him, and Xander...Xander could deal with John, with most of the baggage in that particular corner. He could make it work, maybe. He turned the idea over in his mind, and decided it was pretty compelling.

About as compelling as getting out of the apartment before the damn demon remembered how to use the internet. Sure, it’d up the chances of it actually finding them, and they wouldn’t have the apartment as a home base to retreat to. But he’d been starting to feel like a rat in a trap, like they might end up backed into too tight a corner. If they were on the move, maybe they could evade it for a while. And he’d much rather fight this thing out in the open, on solid ground with a weapon in his hand.

He really did want to fight it, he realised. It’d been a while since he’d had such a personal stake in the slayage, other than how it was personal because it was his whole life. This felt different, this was one demon he wanted to take on himself because it _owed_ him. It’d pinned him to a wall and tried to kill him. It’d almost killed Dean. It’d killed Sam’s girlfriend, which made Dean panic and be stupid. It’d killed Dean’s _mom_ , for Christ’s sake.

And The First couldn’t have come at him like that if she hadn’t been dead.

He rubbed a hand tiredly back over his head. That was a totally insane and selfish reason, and he really was going crazy. But still. Any way he looked at the situation, slayage was called for. Maybe it was time for him to start thinking about that, to start getting _angry_ about it.

He could do that, he thought grimly.

He could also be bait, if necessary, he realised. He didn’t trust John, and Dean would never, ever agree to it. But if it was on his own terms...

Xander filed that away as something to think about, maybe after he knew more about getting the weapon. He rubbed at his forehead again, still bothered by the never-ending headache, and decided another time out was in order before he called Giles. He was tired of talking to people, tired of thinking, tired of _today_ , and there were no signs of any of it ending any time soon. He glanced at the door, wondering briefly if he should go back out and tell them the good news, but he didn’t feel quite ready for it yet.

He’d wait until he’d talked to Giles. And the living room felt a little bit like enemy territory, sort of. Sort of not, at the same time, but...

Whatever, he though, dismissing the whole weird phobia. He grabbed the packet of cigarettes off his nightstand, tossed it back down when he realised it was almost empty, and went over to his sock drawer to get a new pack. He grabbed an extra sweater while he was there and pulled it on, cause the duvet should really stay on the bed.

He wasn’t really a drug addict, he thought idly as went over to the window. Sure, nicotine was a drug, and it was a little weird that he actually had a _stash_ , but it was only cigarettes. On a scale of substances he could be addicted to, he was probably still coming out on top, somehow.

Xander crawled out the window and lowered himself down in the same spot as yesterday. The cold air was bracing, and helped to clear his head, clear away some of the fug of anxiety that had surrounded him inside. Ignoring the Willow-voice in his head that told him smoking was going to kill him, he lit a cigarette and leaned his head back and tried to relax.

It was hard, though, because he’d just decided going out on the road with the Winchesters was an actual option, and he almost wanted to laugh out loud. It would have been a hysterical kind of laugh, too, because Christ, that was only going to end badly. It was going to be a disaster for everyone involved.

It’d probably be better than being trapped in his apartment with only his own brain to distract him, though. And maybe it _would_ somehow miraculously solve his Dean problem.

It felt a little like he was clutching at straws. But before he could talk himself out of it, he pulled his phone from his pocket and dialled Giles.

“Xander,” Giles said, before he could get a hello out.

“G-man. Finally worked out the caller ID?” The sound of Giles’ voice was a relief, and he tried to make his own voice sound light and less troubled. He wasn’t sure how well he succeeded.

Giles snorted. “I’ve always known it was there, Xander, but it’s more polite to let people identify themselves.”

“...Really?” Xander said, surprised and totally willing to be side-tracked, even by etiquette. He couldn’t believe he was about to try and convince Giles to let him do this. He wasn’t even sure he _wanted_ to do this. Except he did, sort of, so...

“No, I’ve got no idea, I’m talking out of my arse,” Giles said dismissively. “I’m assuming you’ve called about the weapon. I don’t suppose you’ve changed your mind?”

“No, Giles, I want to handle it,” Xander said, grateful that his determination wasn’t totally faked. “I want to be the one to get the weapon, because if it’s possible at all, I want to kill this sucker.” Before Giles could argue with him, he added, “I’m not about to do anything stupid, and if it makes more sense, I’ll let someone else do it. But even if I’m not actively being bait, you can’t deny that I’m the one we _know_ it’s going to come after. It makes sense for me to be armed, you know?”

Giles paused, then said, “Yes, I know. I don’t like it, but I know.” His agreement could be called reluctant at best. “Well, we still have a few days to come with a plan. The weapon isn’t exactly _available_ yet,” he hedged. “Someone else will take care of the extraction – it’s a situation rather like Glasgow – and I still need to speak to Andrew to confirm. But once the plan is in place on their end, I’ll organise your flights from here, and perhaps even arrange a false identity, and you can retrieve it.”

“Whoa, whoa,” Xander said, a little bowled over. “One thing at a time. First... what the hell does Andrew have to do with anything?” Last he’d heard, Andrew was in Rome, running a team and emailing Xander about Bram Stoker.

Giles hesitated. “I’d rather not explain, actually. The less you know about the extraction, the better.”

“I...huh.” Giles had said Glasgow, and if it was like Glasgow and Giles said Xander was need-to-know, he could go with it. “Okay, whatever you say.”

Giles paused. “I think that’s the first time you’ve ever said that to me and meant it,” he said, a wondering note in his voice. Xander laughed.

“You should have got it on tape.”

“I’ll regret the missed opportunity, I’m sure. Next question?”

“Okay,” Xander said, still smiling. “Glasgow? Really?” He thought for a second, then added, “Cause Glasgow was kinda fun.” He didn’t have to make any effort to keep the smile on his face. Baiting Giles was always the best distraction.

True to form, Giles sighed heavily. “Fun. Yes, I never could impress the seriousness of that situation on you; you just wanted to play at being spies.” There was no real snippiness in his voice, so Xander knew he wasn’t really in trouble.

“Secret agents, Giles, not spies,” he corrected. Glasgow hadn’t really been fun, he’d been working with Kennedy, but playing at 007 had been sort of exhilarating. It hadn’t been about an apocalypse, for once; just a few small betrayals.

“Semantics, Xander,” Giles dismissed, and steered them slightly back to business. “The specifics of the situation mean this is slightly like Rottenrow.”

Rottenrow, Xander thought. Right. It hadn’t been the hardest part of the job, but it’d been... interesting.

“I’ll keep you informed as the situation develops,” Giles went on. “Once we have a location, you’ll retrieve the weapon, and please, _please_ remember that this time you won’t have Kennedy at your back, Xander.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Xander muttered, rolling his eyes.

“I mean you’ll have to be careful,” Giles insisted, all joking gone.

“I will be,” Xander promised seriously. It occurred to him that convincing Giles to let him go out on the road was one thing; convincing _Dean_ was going to be another. It was a sobering thought, and his headache started coming back just at the idea.

“All right. Things may be in place as early as tonight, and while I’m not sure how long the extraction will take, you can leave Cleveland whenever you like. We’re working on a way to guarantee a slayer will be available, but I’m not sure if we can do it. Perhaps we should risk it anyway,” he muttered. “I won’t have you going in alone.”

Bracing himself, Xander said, “About that. Rather than risking a slayer, don’t you think it makes sense for the Winchesters to go instead?”

He held his breath. Giles was silent for a long moment, then finally said, “What?” His voice was flat, and Xander recognised that special note of disbelief Giles got when he’d just heard a spectacularly ill-timed joke.

“Think about it,” Xander tried. “Dean’ll want to come with me, and if John hears there’s a weapon, you know he’s going to want in on the plan. They’re all going to get in the way anyway. We might as well make them useful.”

“It’s not about making them useful, it’s about ensuring your safety,” Giles countered, sounding stunned. He went on, talking over Xander when he tried to protest. “And I have absolutely no faith at all in their ability to keep you out of danger.”

“A slayer can’t keep me out of danger, either, Giles, I’ve got the past _eight years_ to back that up,” Xander said evenly, congratulating himself on his calm. “And Wood was the one who exorcised the demon the other night, not Faith. Not that I want him with me either,” he added quickly.

“I wouldn’t suggest Wood come with you, I’m not stupid,” Giles retorted. “It’s just...Good God, Xander, what are you _thinking_? I know you want to spend time with Dean, but how can you think this is a good idea?”

Xander paused. “I think 'good' is stretching it, but...it’s probably the best idea out of a whole bunch of bad ones. I really, _really_ want to leave Cleveland for a while, I want to be on the move. And I don’t want the demon coming here.” He paused again, realising as he spoke that he was talking himself into it. He wasn’t sure if it was a bad thing or not. “I just think it’ll solve a few problems, you know? It seems like the easiest way.”

Giles was apparently speechless, so Xander went on hopefully. “I’ll be careful, Giles, I’ve promised you. And the Winchesters...despite what you think, I think they’ll look out for me. Dean will, for sure. And John’s back, and he’s apologised and everything.”

Giles wasn’t impressed. “Oh, has he?” he said derisively. “I’m _so_ glad.”

“He was stressed, like we thought, and he wanted me to pass that apology on to you, that he was sorry for, you know, taking it out on you and stuff,” Xander went on, improvising only a little and hoping the apology would make Giles less actively angry about them. He couldn’t believe he was cleaning up John’s mess, though, God, that man was a pain in the ass.

“Did he apologise to you as well?” Giles demanded.

“Yeah, he did,” Xander replied calmly, and waited.

“Fine,” Giles eventually said. “It’s unacceptable, but fine. I still don’t think you should take them with you.”

“Giles.”

“ _Xander_.”

“What are my options? Going by myself? Going with a slayer who probably can’t fight this demon anyway? Or this way, I can go with people who, no matter my personal opinion about them, are totally dedicated to killing it. Who do you think I’ll be better off with?” He hadn’t even thought of that as an argument before, but hell, it seemed like he was getting good at making this stuff up on the fly.

It took a long time for Giles to reply. “I will only agree to this,” he said heavily. “If you swear to me you’re alright with it. If this is your response to pressure from Dean, or pressure from _John_ —“

“It’s not,” Xander interrupted. “I haven’t even told them about the weapon yet. And Dean’s probably going to be harder to convince than you are.”

Giles was silent again for a moment, then huffed out a breath. “Fine.”He sounded grouchy, but like he was letting it go. A sliver of the tension in Xander’s shoulders relaxed. There was still plenty left over, but one little bit was enough to make him feel a little less like he was about to die.

“So. So, when you leave town you’ll go with the Winchesters,” Giles said, testing the phrase and sounding disgusted by the taste of it. “I hope you don’t think the Council will pay for their plane tickets.”

Wow, way to take the high road, Giles, Xander thought, wanting to roll his eyes. Then, after a slight hesitation, he admitted, “Actually, I think we’ll probably drive?”

Another heavy silence from Giles. “You’re going to _drive_?” The ‘are you completely crazy?’ was unsaid but definitely there.

“Safer, don’t you think? I’m pretty sure I’d rather meet the demon on the road than end up trapped with it in a metal tube flying thousands of miles above the ground. And I mean, I don’t want to be trapped on a plane with the Winchesters, either,” Xander replied, feeling practically cheerful.

For some reason, Giles’ reaction was solidifying Xander’s resolve. He was coming up with more and more reasons to do this, more ways it was going to solve their problems. And aside from that, the very fact that Giles disapproved of what he was doing gave him such a nostalgic, familiar feeling – it made him feel like he knew where he stood for the first time in days.

“If the plan changes, it’ll be easier if we’re mobile, don’t you think?” he added. “Plus I’d rather be _doing_ something.” He didn’t try to hide his restlessness, knew Giles would be able to hear it in his voice. He didn’t care – it was one thing he could tell the truth about. He wanted to be on the _move_.

Giles sighed again. Xander would lay bets that he was sadly cleaning his glasses. “At least promise me you won’t tell them about the retrieval? Not even Dean, not until after it’s done? For God’s sake, Xander, your life could be at stake here.”

And that was unexpected pressure. But as he thought about it, it seemed fair. Going in alone meant it would fall on him to pull off what they’d pulled off on Rottenrow with four people. His mind raced, but he was surprised to find he was looking forward to the challenge. Something to do – a distraction.

“Okay, that sounds fair,” he said, then added, “They’ll do it, Giles. Whatever I need to do, I’m sure they’ll let me.” Before Giles could go on, he added, “And if not, I’ll lie. I’ll just...I’ll just lie and do it anyway. I can come up with something.” He could do it. He knew he could pull it off, Giles just had to trust him.

It took Giles a while to reply. “All right. Perhaps we can even use their presence to our advantage, in that respect. I’ll consider it.”

Before Xander could thank him, he went on, muttering. “And until then, you’re going to be careful, and I’m not going to fly over there and take care of this in person.”

And just like that, Xander was desperate for Giles to come. Desperate for Giles to come and take control and take care of everything while Xander went and hid under the bed.

But he bit his tongue. That wasn’t how it was going to go.

As if he could sense Xander’s momentary vulnerability over the phone, Giles asked softly, “What about your nightmares?”

Xander’s throat seized up and he froze. “What about them?” he managed, his voice immediately low and rough.

“Well, what if you have one while you’re with them?” Giles asked reasonably, like it should have been obvious.

Xander hadn’t thought of that. “I’m sure it’ll be fine,” he dismissed, or tried to. He could feel something close up inside him. All his irrational cheerfulness was gone, all his faith that he could manage on his own. And Giles was suddenly the boss again, and Xander the operative; the father-son feeling was gone too. “I’ve been sleeping fine so far,” he reminded Giles coldly. Giles would want to take him out of the field, and Xander couldn’t let him. He’d probably lose his mind for real.

Giles paused deliberately.

“I have been,” Xander insisted. “And if I have one, I have one. Who cares? I’m not ashamed of them,” he blustered, fear becoming anger. He knew it was another lie, though.

“I didn’t mean that, Xander,” Giles said, the warmth still in his voice like he was refusing to respond to Xander’s chilliness with any of his own. “You _shouldn’t_ be ashamed of them. With everything you’ve gone through, it’s perfectly natural.”

Internally, Xander disagreed, and something twisted sourly in his throat at the thought. There was nothing _natural_ about his nightmares. But he’d never explained that to Giles, never told him how vivid they were. Another kind of chill washed over him, and he had to force himself to ignore the whisper of her voice in his head.

He hadn’t told Giles how his nightmares were happening when he was awake, either.

Giles went on. “I am concerned, however, about the Winchesters, and how they might react if you have a nightmare while you’re with them. If they don’t understand, if they don’t treat you _compassionately_ ,” Giles said, and the anger that was finally showing in his voice suddenly undid all of Xander’s defensive coldness.

“It’s fine, Giles,” Xander said, rubbing tiredly at his forehead again. His headache was back.

After a pause, Giles said, “I don’t like this plan, Xander. I want to send someone with you.”

“To babysit?” he asked, a little of the iciness returning. Someone else who could do nothing but watch while he had a nervous breakdown?

“ _To be on your side_ ,” Giles insisted.

“I told you, I can defend myself. And Dean—“

“ _Dean_?” Giles’ voice was bitter when he cut him off.

“Giles,” Xander said softly.

“Yes, I’m sorry,” Giles said helplessly. “But my hands are tied, Xander, do you see that? I’m useless to you where I am, and no-one from our side will be with you if anything should happen,” he insisted.

Guilt twisted in Xander’s gut, bile in his throat. For a moment, he wasn’t sure if he could _do_ this, if the lies he was telling were worth it. But what was the alternative?

“I’m going to be alright, Giles, I promised you already,” he said, hoping it wasn’t also a lie. “I’ll be as careful as possible.”

“Don’t break that promise,” Giles said, and it was practically an order. Xander had never felt so ashamed in his life. He was _lying_.

“I won’t. And Giles? You’ve helped. Not just with the demon stuff. You’ve helped.” It was still completely inadequate. But anything to make Giles feel better, anything to stop him from worrying, to stop the fear and sadness Xander could hear in his voice.

“I’m glad,” Giles eventually said, voice softer but still sad.

Xander cleared his throat. “I’m gonna go now. Just...I’ll keep trying to call Willow,” he said, swallowing hard.

He hung up almost before Giles could goodbye, cold regret crawling down his spine.

He hated lying. But what choice did he have? He was only lying about some of it, only lying enough that Giles would let him go out on the road. Lying enough so that he could get out of this goddamn town.

Not that leaving would probably do any good. It was all in his own head, after all, and his head was going with him. But the worst of it, when it’d been the worst so far, the biggest shock...

His stomach lurched as his brain skipped over the thought of the cemetery, or tried to. It was almost like his mind refused to land on it, like it was the big pink elephant in the middle of the room that none of his neurons were talking about.

And even though his momentary determination had been slightly discoloured with what he had to admit was dread – thanks, Giles, he thought bitterly, he'd really needed to try and factor his goddamn nightmares into the whole scenario – going on the road with the Winchesters still seemed like the best option.

Sure, John irritated the fuck out of him, and his ambivalent reactions to Dean were probably only going to get worse. But what was the alternative here, really? Getting left alone in the apartment with nothing but his own brain for company? Going to England, or Africa, or Scotland? Going back to work on jobs Giles actually approved of, even though they were just as likely to get him killed?

Telling everyone and rotting in the bughouse? He knew he only had to say one word to Faith, and she could make it happen. He had no doubt that a stay in a psychiatric hospital was not outside the realm of possibility here.

Or worse. He'd tell everyone, or she would, and nothing would happen. They wouldn't help him because they didn't know how.

But getting out there and focusing on slayage, actually doing something about the demon instead of waiting for it to come after him again... No matter what the side effects or how much it could potentially fuck him up if it went wrong, it was the best, maybe the only thing he could think to do.

He’d definitely be less able to spend heaps of time thinking about his problems if he was busy, that idea still held. And yeah, maybe to some people 'heaps of time thinking about his problems' sounded like a good idea. Right now, though, the last thing he wanted to do was deliberately take some kind of vacation solely devoted to thinking about his shit.

Some kind of _breather_.

Which was unfair to Faith. She’d had the best of intentions. But...maybe he could call it a change of scene? A little ridiculous, since for the past year his whole life had been one change of scene after the other, with the amount of travelling he'd been doing. But this was different.

Dean himself was a change of scene. Dealing with new problems, going after new demons, dealing with new – if irritating – people.

It could work, he thought, frowning.

He wasn't sure how he was going to survive without this fire escape, though, since it was apparently where he came up with his best ideas. Or worst, since part of him was pretty sure his change of scene would only be a good thing until his big, pink elephant decided to make another appearance.

He rubbed the bridge of his nose and winced. Metaphors, Jesus.

But elephants aside, what did he really have to lose? He turned that thought over for a while.

Not much, he decided.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from a song by Them Crooked Vultures (the song is also called Warsaw).


	25. Hang You From The Heavens

As Alex left the room, trailing tension and stress and shutting Dean out yet again, Dean sighed and closed his book. He’d only been pretending to read it anyway. He sat there for a minute, feeling anger and frustration at his total _uselessness_ gradually build inside him, but then he stood and went into the kitchen before he could do something stupid like punch John in the face.

Sam, who’d watched Alex go in surprise, called after him, “Aren’t you gonna go after him?”

“In a minute,” Dean replied shortly, unable to stop his hands from clenching. He’d escaped to the kitchen to be out of sight, and he wanted to let himself crash and really feel, once again, all the ways that he was fucking this up.

He couldn’t if he still had to talk, though, and goddamnit, they seemed determined to keep asking him questions. His throat felt tight, like someone was squeezing it.

John cleared his throat. “Was that—was that about me?” His voice was slightly raised, like Sam’s had been, but Dean could still tell the question was reluctant. And for a brief moment, he wanted to say ‘yes’, to dump all of this on John’s head and blame him for everything.

But he couldn’t. It pissed him off, but he had to be honest. It wasn’t all about John; their problems were bigger than that.

“Probably not,” Dean eventually said. The anger suddenly drained away, leaving him exhausted. He leaned on the counter and stared out the window. There was probably more showing on his face than he wanted, but whatever, no-one could see him right now. “Not totally, anyway,” he added, not caring if his voice was too low for them to hear.

“So... So, what...” John didn’t seem to know how to ask the question, and Dean knew what he wanted but wasn’t about to help him out.

Dean frowned, momentarily dismissing John’s awkwardness in favour of trying to work out... What was this, depression? Despair? It felt like all the fight had gone out of him, like he didn’t have any energy left to be mad or worried, he was just kind of...sad.

Which was fucking stupid. He didn’t have the right to be sad. No-one had done anything to him, he’d brought all of his on himself. He needed to get a grip.

“I don’t know, Dad,” he finally said, tasting bitterness in the back of his throat. “I’m not actually psychic, maybe he just wanted to make a call like he said.”

“Maybe he wanted a break,” Sam suggested, ignoring Dean’s attempt to shut down the line of questioning and not actually talk about Alex behind his back.

Dean could hear Sam perfectly well through the gap between the counter and the cabinets, where the living room showed through, but sadness aside, he figured he should probably take control of the conversation. He took a deep breath, letting himself have one more moment to strengthen his defences before he had to withstand their scrutiny again. Then he walked slowly back out into the living room.

“A break,” John was saying, as if testing the phrase on his tongue.

Dean didn’t sit at the table but stood behind it, ready to leave. “Yeah,” he said, managing to break in before Sam could explain his suggestion. “You know, some time alone, given that every other square inch of his apartment is full of people who stress him out just by existing.”

He didn’t look at John, and instead kept his eyes down on the books as if he was looking them over. But he was pretty sure the point of his statement made an impact.

“Even you?” Sam said warily.

Dean was surprised enough by the question to look up, and gave Sam an incredulous look. “Think that one through,” he said.

Sam subsided, and Dean started ignoring them both again as he thought about what to do. He wanted to go after Alex, and the longer he was out of sight, the worse it got. He’d shaken off most of the weird sadness that had him wanting to curl in a ball and let everything wash away, but he still didn’t think he could do anything.

He just wanted to be near Alex. How long should he wait?

 _As long as it took_ , he thought, and immediately wanted to roll his eyes at the involuntary thought. He really was just a giant girl.

He turned away from the table, in the vague direction of the hallway, running both hands up over his face and into his hair. The feel of his hands scraping over his scalp was a little bit grounding, and he tried to rub some of the tension out of the back of his neck. The headache probably wasn’t helping his state of mind, and pacing uselessly around the room wasn’t likely to help either.

He wasn’t sad. He wasn’t, because that’d be ridiculous. He just needed to do something. He needed to go knock on the bedroom door and see how Alex was, maybe get him to do that hand-holding-leaning thing again. That’d seemed to help, and Dean wasn’t going to deny that the proximity had been fucking awesome.

How long had it been?

Did he care? Did it matter? Maybe he could just go over to the door, see if he could hear talking? That was probably reasonable, right? He’d back off if Alex was on the phone, if he’d managed to get through to Willow.

Willow. That was another stress thing, he realised, Alex was probably freaked that he hadn’t talked to her yet. Hell, Dean had a few things he’d like to say to her himself. He didn’t have a lot of practice thanking people for saving his life, especially people who probably hated his guts but saved him anyway, but he could probably come up with something.

He glanced at the bedroom door, still ignoring the scrutiny from the table.

He wanted to go over, but at the same time he didn’t want to risk it. He didn’t know whether Alex would want to see him or not, didn’t know if Alex would let him in.

And Dean didn’t want to be turned away.

***

Xander wasn’t sure how long he stayed out there, alone in the cold. It was peaceful, at least, quiet apart from the sound of traffic from the street and TV or talking from another apartment. His thoughts had started circling, the desire to get going, get moving, countered every time by the legitimate worry that he was actually crazy and going out on the road was a crazy person’s decision. He was truly, truly tired of thinking about it, though, and thought about pretending that cigarettes and the cold were totally distracting him. Surely if he pretended hard enough, it’d come true eventually?

He was just frowning down at his cigarette, wondering if he didn’t deserve everything he got for lying to all of his friends anyway, when it hit him.

He was behaving like Angel.

He almost dropped his cigarette in shock. It was true – he was _brooding_. And then there was the angst, the uneasy love life, the unhinged mental state. How had this happened without him noticing? What the hell was _wrong_ with him? He was probably seconds away from taking up hair gel as a lifestyle choice and going cuckoo for cheerleaders.

Xander let his head fall back against the bricks and closed his eyes in disgust. Fuck, just when he thought his day couldn’t get any worse. He’d been brooding. He was _still_ brooding. And now he was so disappointed in himself.

Dean’s voice broke him out of his dismay, and the sight of him was a relief.

“Do I need to get the comforter again?” Dean’s expression was overly stern, with an exaggerated frown like he was trying to make a joke out of his over-protectiveness. Xander appreciated the effort, even though he knew part of Dean was completely serious.

“No, I went and got an extra sweater. And look, Ma, boots!” he said, lifting his feet and knocking his booted feet together, trying to ignore the part of him that was freaking out because he was Angel, the part that was freaking out because Dean was suddenly _right there_ , and the part of him that was freaking out because it made him so damn _happy_.

It shouldn’t, it shouldn’t happen so fast, he thought helplessly. But it didn’t change the feeling.

Oblivious to Xander’s dismay, Dean snorted. “Okay, then,” he said, satisfied. Then he hesitated.

Xander waited, mentally dismissing all other concerns and giving in to the desire to watch Dean. Just watch; watch the way his jaw curved as he tilted his head away, watch the way his eyelids flickered and his mouth thinned out a bit as he argued with himself.

“I don’t want to bug you if you want to be alone,” Dean finally said, hesitant and unsure. “But, uh...want some company?”

His expression was hopeful, and there was a tiny bit of desperation in his eyes. Desperation that Xander could tell he was working pretty hard not to show.

“Sure,” he agreed, not letting himself think too much about it, and he didn’t miss Dean’s surprise. It was quickly followed by relief, and it wasn’t the first time he’d noticed that Dean wanted to stay close. Xander tried not to let himself think too hard about that, either, and he absolutely refused to admit that he found it endearing. Because he didn’t, not at all.

Dean climbed quickly out through the window and lowered himself down to the metal grille Xander was sitting on. He sat close to Xander, casting him a nervous look like he was sitting as close as he dared.

Xander just offered him the pack of cigarettes, forcing his eyes away as Dean took one. He couldn’t let himself watch anymore, it wasn’t good for him. Instead he tilted his head back again, resting it back on the bricks, and stared up at the patches of sky that were visible through the metal bars and grilles of the fire escape, through the top of the alley.

After a few moments of silence, Dean asked carefully, “Good phone calls?”

Xander shrugged. “Interesting.” He didn’t want to get into it yet. He’d just about got his equilibrium back – irrational fear of Angel’s behaviour aside – and he wanted to hold onto it a little longer before they all started fighting again. He needed to build up his strength.

Dean nodded, but didn’t press. Xander kept staring upwards, feeling Dean’s warmth against his side. All his panic felt far away for a moment, and it was so good to feel calm again.

He tried to ignore the reason, that he was calm because of Dean. Like he’d been in the kitchen. It was bad, it was too fast, it was going to kill him. But he was tired, and he was losing the energy it took to stay tense.

At least that meant he probably wasn’t going to be Angel any time soon. Angel never relaxed.

“Did Giles give you any idea what’s going to happen?” Dean asked. And he just sounded interested. Not like the question was a challenge, not like he was pushing, but like he was just asking a question and Xander could answer however he wanted.

Xander shrugged. “Yeah, but I just want... I’ll tell you inside, okay? Can we just—“ He cut off, not really sure how to go on. He wanted to hold on to their moment out here, when it was just the two of them, the calm before the storm. Because he was pretty sure it was going to be a storm. Even if the news didn’t spark a fight, there’d be plans and preparations, and probably packing.

And, if he was honest with himself, maybe he was pushing a little. Testing the limits of what Dean would put up with from him, and how much he would let Xander get away with. Xander was withholding information about the demon, and now Dean knew it. How would he react?

Dean studied him carefully, and Xander was suddenly a lot more uncertain than he’d been a moment ago. Testing Dean was kind of a dick move, he decided, and it was on the tip of his tongue to take it back when Dean said, “Okay.”

“Okay?” He stared at Dean, stunned and a little suspicious. That was too easy.

“Yeah, okay,” Dean said calmly. He was frowning down at his cigarette, which seemed to have somehow gone out. “If the news has stressed you out that much, we can chill out here for a while before we have to go in and face Dad. No problem.”

Xander’s throat tightened, suspicion totally derailed. He couldn’t take his eyes off Dean’s profile.

 _We_.

The word had conflicting emotions running through him again. That warm, three-words spark was making itself known again, but at the same time, he kinda wanted to throw up. Dean said ‘we’, like it was totally natural, like it was the two of them against the world and he’d never thought about them any other way. But as much as Xander wanted to believe in that, he sure as hell knew it was a lie.

Maybe he was reading too much into a single word. Maybe he was crazy. Maybe still had no idea what the fuck he was doing.

Dean eventually caught on to the fact that he was being stared at, and glanced over, raising an eyebrow. Xander looked away, embarrassed and still queasy with indecision. “Can I have the lighter back?” Dean asked, and Xander handed it over without looking.

Hesitantly, still not sure if it was the right thing to say but unable to keep from testing himself, Xander said, “What if.” He paused. “What if we all went out on the road? Like, all four of us, what if we all had to go out on the road together?”

Dean snorted. “I can think of things I’d rather do,” he said drily. Then he looked over at Xander again. “You’re not just asking that as a hypothetical, are you?”

Xander shrugged, but didn’t say anything.

Dean sighed heavily, and thought it over. “It wouldn’t be too dangerous for you?”

As a first response, that was far more accepting than Xander had expected. Which was pretty amazing. “No more dangerous than staying here and waiting for it to come to us,” he said honestly.

“You sure about that? I mean, this is the Bermuda triangle. And Cleveland’s not so bad. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, what more do you need?” Dean asked, with an appealing grin.

Xander gave him as dirty a look as he could manage, but Dean was teasing him and it was making him a little giddy. God, he was pathetic, he thought. Before he could think better of it, he pointed out, “Yeah, until your demon remembers how to use Google. If Sam can find me online, anyone can.”

Dean’s smile disappeared like Xander had slapped it off his face. “Shit,” he said, all the teasing gone. His eyes went wide, and Xander expected him to start looking over his shoulder at any second. “I didn’t think of that. Shit, the whole apartment might as well have a big target painted on it.” Xander could have kicked himself at the panicked look on Dean’s face.

“Hey, it’s fine for now,” he promised. “We’re hidden right now, I swear.”

For a moment, it looked like Dean wasn’t going to buy it, but eventually he gritted his teeth and let out a long breath. “Yeah, okay.” He shoved the hand that wasn’t holding a cigarette back through his hair, and it looked like he was trying very hard to stay calm.

Xander could tell it wasn’t working.

“Hey,” he said softly, reaching over. His hand landed on Dean’s forearm and he squeezed gently. Dean looked up, met his eyes, and Xander tried to project something that would make Dean not worry. “Hey, it’s going to be fine.”

Dean’s hand curled around his to keep it there, and he kept looking at Xander. The desperation was back in his eyes, and this time it was mixed with panic. But his expression changed, eyes becoming intent and determined, and it almost looked like he was silently promising something. Xander tried not to let it make him nervous.

Instead he held on, hoping it was comforting Dean. Part of him started hoping helplessly that it wasn’t going to be a problem that he _wanted_ to comfort Dean.

Eventually Dean’s shoulders dropped and his panic seemed to fade. His grip became less about holding on tight, more about touch. His expression changed again, became more of that warm look, fascinating and terrifying. And suddenly Xander didn’t have to fight so hard not to be scared.

Right now, even with everything else or maybe because of it, Xander could feel the connection between them again. He could feel how it worked, how it made sense, how it was _right_.

Anger and loss still washed over him when he felt like this, the shadow of the year he’d been alone still hitting him. But maybe he was moving past it, just a little. Right now, somehow, it wasn’t making him feel as pathetic and lost as it had.

He still didn’t know what it meant, not yet. He still didn’t know what the fuck he was doing. But against all the odds, he felt better than he had a few minutes ago, better than an hour ago. And that was something.

Dean’s hand moved, rubbing lightly across his knuckles. They broke their staring competition; Dean grinned sheepishly, and Xander tried not to just grin back. He looked out over the alley again and took a nervous drag on his cigarette, glad for something uncomplicated to do. He’d been overwhelmed too many times today, his emotions see-sawing too much, and he was _over_ it.

But it could be worse, he realised, and had to hide another smile.

Beside him, Dean copied his movements, probably also relieved to have escaped another emotionally fraught moment relatively intact. He was inhaling deeply when Sam stuck his head out the window.

“Hey guys, sorry to bother you but—Dean, since when do you _smoke_?” Sam said, shocked.

Dean’s hand jerked, moving the cigarette down beside him like he thought he could hide it. In the same moment, he coughed out a cloud of smoke, eyes watering as he almost choked. It was a fantastically uncool move.

“Oh, hell,” Dean managed hoarsely, still choking a little and somehow looking defiant and weirdly guilty at the same time. “I don’t, Sam, I just—“

Xander couldn’t help it; he laughed out loud. Once he started, he couldn’t stop – Dean was ridiculous. He looked like a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar.

“It’s my fault, Sam, I’m a bad influence,” Xander said eventually, once he’d gotten a hold of himself. He didn’t bother to hide his own cigarette, or the grin he knew would irritate Dean because it implied that Xander knew exactly how uncool he really was.

Sam raised his eyebrows at Dean, a cheeky smile on his face, and any second Xander expected to hear ‘I’m gonna tell on you.’

“You are _not_ a bad influence,” Dean protested in Xander’s direction, which was a slightly different objection than Xander had expected. “I don’t—“ He stopped, totally at a loss, unable to defend himself without snitching on the kid who lifted him up to get the cookies.

He settled for glaring up at Sam, who grinned back unrepentantly. “You’re so busted,” Sam said, delighted.

Xander started laughing again.

Dean didn’t reply, and when Xander looked over, he wasn’t glaring at Sam anymore. He was watching Xander with a soft, surprised smile on his face, fingers fiddling absently with his cigarette.

When Xander met his eyes, though, Dean seemed to realise what he was doing and looked away, embarrassed. “Uh,” he began, clearing his throat.

Xander took pity on him. “Come on, let’s ditch the bad habit and go inside. I’ll make some more coffee, and hey, I forgot before but I bought you M&Ms.”

“Aw, baby, you didn’t have to do that,” Dean grinned, pleased.

Xander was affronted. _Baby_? What the fuck? “Baby?” he said, scowling. He pointed a finger at Dean. “For that, I’m not gonna share my twinkies.”

The grin dropped off Dean’s face, and he actually pouted. Xander almost started laughing again.

Sam did laugh, then said, “Actually, that’s what I came out here to ask about. Could we order a pizza or something?”

“Too good for sandwiches, now?” Xander asked mildly, clambering in through the window and ignoring the way Dean hovered anxiously behind him, waiting to catch him if he fell.

“No!” Sam denied, endearingly earnest and worried about offending someone. “Uh, there’s no more bread.”

Xander blinked. “Oh. Already?”

“Yeah, you guys only got one loaf?” Sam said apologetically.

And there were four full-grown men in the apartment, three of whom hadn’t seemed to share Xander’s earlier nausea at the prospect of food. “Hey, my mistake,” Xander admitted. You’d think he’d learn, he’d been feeding slayers for years. “Pizza, huh? I wonder if we need to get garlic bread,” he muttered.

Dean and Sam exchanged confused glanced. “Well, I could eat some,” Dean said, after a moment, obviously not sure what the significance was.

“Oh,” Xander realised, then explained, “In Sunnydale they wouldn’t deliver no-garlic orders. You know, because of the vampires? A pizza guy is like Meals on Wheels, even in broad daylight – _especially_ in broad daylight – and I should know, cause I delivered for a while. So anyway, it’s usually easier to just order the garlic bread right from the beginning.”

He noticed the blank looks on their faces, and added, “I don’t know if Cleveland’s really there yet, though, you know?”

They didn’t seem to know. No answer, and Xander turned to head into the hallway, still explaining. “It’s still early days in terms of hellmouthy-influences here, so the vampire population might not have made enough impact on the civilians to mean that kind of thing’s important.”

There was still silence behind him. When Xander turned to look, they were both still standing where he’d left them, staring. Dean’s glare had an edge of pissed-off, and Sam just looked freaked. Xander frowned, shooting Dean a raised eyebrow like, ‘what?’

Dean opened and closed his mouth a few times, like he was trying to speak, but eventually he just shook his head and said, “Hellmouths are just so freaking _special_.”

Xander raised both his eyebrows, unsure what the big deal was. Bracing himself for John, he turned and headed determinedly into the lounge room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from a song by the Dead Weather.


	26. The Weight of the World

They kept up the banter while they ordered. John’s contribution was minimal, and Sam tried not to glare at him every time he opened his mouth. He was being careful again, Sam could tell, and at least it was coming out polite more often than awkward, but Sam was still pretty pissed off. He held his tongue, though; Alex seemed to be ignoring John, as far as it was polite, and so was Dean, so Sam wasn’t going to start something. As much as he wanted to.

There was a lull after the phone call, when they had to wait for the delivery. John went straight back to the books, but Sam eyed them reluctantly, wondering if there was anything he hadn’t tried on the internet. The books were way too creepy.

But then Alex, who’d barely glanced at the books on the table, said, “I think I’m going to start packing up weapons. We might as well leave as soon as we can, even though we don’t know where we’re going,” he said. It was almost like he was talking to himself, thinking out loud, and it took Sam a minute to catch on.

John seemed to connect it first. “What the hell are you talking about?” The look on his face was a mixture of shock and hope.

Alex frowned. “Weapons?”

“No, but...we’re going to _leave_? _We’re_ going to leave?” John was clearly stunned.

“Oh, shit. Sorry,” Alex said, catching himself. “Giles has found the weapon,” he explained. “He’s getting it extracted, and you’re all going to come with me when they make the handover. I said we’d probably drive,” he added, glancing at Dean but keeping most of his focus on John.

His tone was calm, and matter-of-fact, even though he had to be aware of how _unbelievable_ his news was. There was also something in his tone of voice, somewhere beneath all the ‘I thought I told you this already’, that subtly indicated that arguments would not be accepted.

Even as he registered Alex’s ‘don’t fuck with me’ voice, Sam was stunned. He’d known, theoretically, that Giles must have access to amazing resources. But how could it be possible that it only took him a few hours to find a weapon? Their father had spent _twenty years_ looking for the colt.

Speaking of John, Sam glanced over and was relieved when it didn’t seem like John was about to fly off the handle about secrets again. Or about jurisdiction, or whatever. He was mostly just staring at Alex in shock, which was fine, because seriously, if John decided to get into it with Alex again, Sam wasn’t going to be held responsible for his actions.

Dean, however, looked not entirely surprised by the news. Which was another shock – Sam would have thought that the very idea of Alex leaving whatever protection Cleveland had to offer would have had Dean arguing loudly and angrily. And if Alex had dropped a bomb like that sometime between now and the phone call earlier, he would have thought they’d have heard the explosion from Dean even if it had happened all the way out on the fire escape.

Instead, Dean was mostly just watching Alex. He didn’t look totally happy about the idea, but he wasn’t shocked or fighting Alex on it. Which meant he must have had some idea it was coming. And now he was meeting Alex’s eyes with a kind of... Well, with trust.

Which... Huh.

That might just be a look Sam should get used to seeing.

As he glanced back at Alex, he realised that the most surprising part of all of this was probably that Alex, of all people, had just freely suggested going out on the road with _John_.

Seriously, the four of them going out on the road together? Was Alex thinking straight?

He was about to ask when John got over his own shock and said, “Where is it? How soon can we get to it?” Demanded, actually.

Alex replied patiently, meeting John’s frantic gaze with a level stare. “I don’t know exactly where, Giles wouldn’t tell me. Which means it’s either somewhere too dangerous for us to know about, or he’s protecting a source.” Sam was impressed by his calm, and also by the level of implicit trust in Mr Giles. If Alex trusted him, though, Sam would too.

“He said to head towards the west coast, and mentioned LA,” Alex went on, casually breaking the stare-off with John. “It has to be extracted from wherever it is, so we have a couple of days to get out there. Then Giles is going to contact me and let me know where to get it from. He said I could go by myself, but I figured it’d probably be easier in the long run if we all went together,” he finished, looking tired, and Sam could imagine how ‘I’m going alone’ would have gone over with John, or even Dean. He winced in sympathy.

“You can go by yourself if you have to,” Dean offered unenthusiastically, obviously feeling like he had to make the effort. Peripherally, Sam could see John tense up.

Dean got a slightly sarcastic smile for his trouble. “Forget it, Dean, this way’s probably easier,” Alex said, a slightly sardonic edge in his voice. He was obviously picking his battles, which was a little unfortunate because it probably meant Alex was only taking them along so he didn’t have to deal with what a pain in the ass John would be if he got left out.

But that didn’t seem to stop the relief on Dean’s face.

“Anyway, like I said, I told Giles we’d probably drive,” Alex continued. “Partly because the plan isn’t set in stone yet and it’ll be easier to change things around if we’re in a car, and partly because I don’t want to end up trapped on a plane with the demon.” He didn’t mention Dean’s fear of flying, but a slightly secretive look in his brother’s direction told Sam he knew all about it.

Come to think of it, getting trapped on a plane with the demon wouldn’t be just _Dean’s_ worst nightmare. Sam couldn’t imagine much worse. Alex was kind of a genius.

“It also means that we can leave as soon as we get our shit together. We don’t have to stay on the hellmouth any more, and risk it coming here.”

“We can probably evade it well enough if we’re on the road,” John agreed. “If we can’t get the weapon for another few days, at least we’ll be on the move. And we can spend some of the next couple of days coming up with a plan of attack.” He sounded relieved and a little grateful, which was no less than Alex deserved, but mostly he just seemed...energised.

As Sam frowned at his father, he noticed that all the hesitance and awkward politeness was gone. Instead, John looked focused, determined, and all the drive and obsession was practically shining out of him. It was like his attention had just been honed to a sharp point.

John was getting exactly what he wanted out of all of this, Sam realised bitterly. And maybe it was irrational to feel like that was so damn unfair, because the two of them had the same goals when it came to this thing, but Sam couldn’t help but resent John’s attitude. Didn’t he realise how damn lucky they were that Alex was there, that he was even willing to help? What the hell would have happened without him? Dean would be dead, or John would have sold his goddamn soul, or the demon would have killed them all. They’d probably be totally screwed.

Not that they weren’t screwed right now; they were on the hellmouth, after all. And it probably wasn’t going to do any good dwelling on John’s attitude. So instead, Sam found his voice and decided to be useful. “Okay, so what do we do right now? What’s the next step?” he asked.

“Packing,” Alex said decisively. “Forget the books, Giles says there’s probably nothing else in them. And, er, you guys didn’t actually bring anything in with you when you arrived, and neither did Dean, so I guess it’s just my stuff.” He paused thoughtfully.

“You said we could take some weapons, right?” Dean asked. “We’ll help you pack them up,” he suggested.

“Sounds good,” Alex agreed, and disappeared into the kitchen, presumably to get his axe out of the bucket. Sam stood up from the table, stretching out the slight stiffness he had from sitting all day. He noticed that John didn’t move for a moment, and when Sam looked down, he had a weird, helpless look on his face.

“What?” Sam hissed, hoping not to draw Dean’s attention, and also head off any freak out John was about to have.

His father startled, and glanced up at him. “Nothing, it’s just...This isn’t what I expected when we came here, and it’s...”He gestured, still helpless.

Sam realised abruptly that the look on his father’s face was hope, and a little more of the gratitude Sam had just been wanting from him. But, contrarily, it made something sour twist in Sam’s stomach. “Pretty damn lucky Dean turned out to be gay?” he suggested, still muttering so Dean wouldn’t hear.

John heard, though, and he gave Sam a slightly disturbed look. He looked a little like he wanted to disagree, but Sam knew he couldn’t, and he turned away from his father without another word.

Alex reappeared from the kitchen, drying the blade of his axe with a tea towel, with the machetes tucked under one arm. At the same moment, there was a knock on the door. Dean opened the door without waiting – he was lucky it was just the pizza – and Sam froze when he realised what the room probably looked like to an outsider.

The delivery guy didn’t even blink, though, even though he had to have seen the weapons scattered across the table. He just nodded at Alex and left. Sam decided to chalk it up to the garlic bread thing, and tried not to think about it.

They didn’t bother moving everything off the table, but ate the pizza standing up in the kitchen. As soon as they’d finished, Alex started frowning in the general direction of the weapons again. “There are some extra duffels in the hall closet, I think, and we can probably just take everything. Someone will come and restock the place before whoever moves in next.”

John dropped the napkin he’d been using to swipe his fingers with and headed for the hallway. Sam watched him go, wondering if he should regret his earlier words and worry about the way his father hadn’t met his eyes at all while they ate, and now seemed anxious to get away from him.

“How does that work, anyway?” Dean asked, moving over to the wall and lifting a crossbow off its hooks. “Your name is on this place, but you don’t usually live here?”

Alex shrugged. “Yeah, pretty much,” he said. “You’re lucky I was here when you arrived.”

Alex set the dried-off weapons down and went to the box he’d pulled from the closet earlier, the one that’d had the laptop in it. As he dug through it, he said, “Most of the slayers are underage, so they can’t lease an apartment like this. Some of the people who can have records, or have names that attract too much attention for other reasons. Some aren’t US citizens, which isn’t always a good thing. On paper, I’m one of the safest, most boring people we’ve got.”

He pulled a bunch of crap out of the box; a baseball cap, a tangle of rope, several bottles of unidentifiable substances, and finally what looked like a gourd. “You’re not boring. And what even is that?” Dean asked, frowning at the thing in Alex’s hands.

“A gourd,” Alex replied. “This is a safe house, you know?” he added. “It can’t be owned by someone who’s name is gonna have red flags going up anywhere, so boring on paper is good.”

“And the only red flags you have are probably about the demon. Your name would have been fine if we hadn’t practically brought this damn thing to your door,” Dean concluded slowly. He looked down and fiddled with the sword he’d taken from the stash, testing the tip. The horribly guilty look on his face had Sam hoping his brother wasn’t contemplating hara-kiri.

Alex had looked surprised; he obviously hadn’t been thinking about it like that. “Don’t worry about it, Dean,” he advised mildly, although he couldn’t be oblivious to the tension that’d spread through the room, the stiff silence from John and Sam at Dean’s words. “Seriously, that wasn’t what I was getting at. This is...” He trailed off, sounding exhausted, and Dean raised guilty eyes. Sam knew he was looking to see how much weight he’d put on Alex’s shoulders just by coming here.

But then Alex raised his head and smiled at him. He still looked tired, he was still in the middle of packing up all of his stuff so they could go out and hunt the thing they’d brought down on him. But the look he gave Dean...

Sam had to look away, for no reason he could immediately name. It was too much, too private. It was almost like everything else in the room had dropped away and it was just the two of them. Once again, Sam felt like he was intruding.

First the bedroom, now this. Dean and Alex kept surprising him, and it wasn’t just because before Alex, Sam wouldn’t have even thought Dean was capable of that kind of intimacy. It was their connection, and how obvious it was. It just felt...rare, or something.

After a minute or two, their moment seemed to break, and Alex shrugged a little helplessly at Dean. Dean couldn’t seem to tear his eyes away, but Alex looked thoughtfully back down at his box. He scratched his chin for a moment, and turned without another word to head towards the bedroom. Sam tried to turn his attention back to the axes he’d pulled off the wall, but he could hear the faint sounds of drawers and closet doors being opened and closed. Dean could probably hear them, too.

So Sam was totally unsurprised when Dean got twitchy after only a few minutes and abandoned his cleaning and polishing of various blades to go after Alex. Sam smiled to himself, just a little, because even when there was nothing but angst and drama, the two of them were still totally retarded for each other. Or Dean was at least, and it was nice to see.

Sam didn’t care what John did or didn’t do; he was on Team Alex for this one. Or Team Dean, but he suspected that was pretty much the same thing.

***

Xander was clearing out the drawer by the bed when Dean came in behind him. He didn’t seem to be taking everything, just picking through for a few important bits and pieces. Maybe he was thinking they’d be back.

He pulled out a book, and something fell from the drawer. It skittered a little way across the floor, and when Dean stepped forward to pick it up, he realised it was the leather cuff he’d given Alex. He turned it over in his hands, taking in the severed ties and the way it was warped and stiff from lack of wear.

When he looked up, Alex was staring at the cuff in Dean’s hands. He looked pale, and also like he was holding his breath. Dean didn’t say anything, though, just held out the cuff and tried not to let the hurt and resignation show on his face.

He must have failed, because Alex started to say, “Dean, I didn’t—“

“Hey, it’s fine. It’s just a cuff,” he interrupted. “I get why you wouldn’t want to wear it anymore.” It was the only thing he’d ever given to Xander, and if his voice was a little hoarse it was probably something to do with the way his necklace suddenly felt like a weight. It was hidden under his clothes for now, but it felt visible, like it was leaving Dean open and vulnerable somehow.

“My arm got cut,” Alex said bluntly, and Dean stopped breathing. “I was...my arm got cut, and the ties were cut too, and I couldn’t wear it anymore.”

Dean glanced down, noticing the dark smudges of discolouration on the inside edges for the first time, noticed how much they looked like dried blood. He wanted to be sick. He tried not to let his eyes stray to Alex’s long sleeves.

“I saved it anyway,” Alex added, voice subdued, and when Dean looked up, the look on Alex’s face was hard to work out, almost unreadable. He wasn’t looking at Dean but at the cuff in his hands, and his eyes were thousand-yard again, like his body was there but his brain was miles away. Maybe it was, and maybe that was good, because Dean sure as hell didn’t want whatever was making Alex look so haunted anywhere close by.

Dean forced himself to stay calm, to not panic from the ongoing worries that Alex was broken and Dean just kept making it worse, or that their whole situation was going to end so damn badly. “Okay,” he said evenly. This was just another way he wasn’t going to fuck up, he told himself. He wasn’t going to ask, he wasn’t going to push, he wasn’t going to make anything harder than it had to be. It didn’t matter if that meant ignoring the way Alex’s past seemed to haunt him so constantly, or just blindly trusting him when he said they needed to leave town. It didn’t even matter if that meant letting Alex sit out in the cold in bare feet, if that was what he wanted to do.

Well, Dean would probably make suggestions about the bare feet thing, because letting Alex do that would just be stupid.

To stop himself from thinking about all of it, he held the cuff out for Alex to take. Alex nodded, and exhaled hard as he turned to tuck the broken leather into a pocket of the backpack he’d been packing. He shuffled through his clothes again, the set of his shoulders telling Dean that he wanted a moment to get himself together. Dean didn’t know why, really, but it didn’t matter.

“So, what’s left?” Dean asked, once Xander was done. He hadn’t helped at all while they’d been in here, he realised, apart from supervising, but luckily Alex didn’t seem to care. He looked calmer than he had a few minutes ago, and that was probably better than nothing.

“Just the weapons,” Xander said, hefting the backpack. Dean let him lead the way out of the bedroom. “You didn’t have any at all when you arrived, did you?” he asked, ducking into the bathroom to grab his toothbrush as they passed.

“Nope, nada,” Dean admitted.

“And you bitch about my sense of self-preservation,” Alex muttered.

Dean ignored him, and as they reached the living room, he asked, “What did you guys bring, anyway? Other than the guns?”

“Bobby gave us some salt and stuff, but it’s still in the van,” Sam replied absently, apparently counting crossbow bolts. John was testing blades, and he had two duffels open on the coffee table, ready to be packed.

“We have a couple of machetes in the van, too,” John added. “Do you have a whetstone or something?” he asked Alex.

“You guys have a van?” Alex replied, sounding interested. He dropped his backpack on the couch and headed into the kitchen. There was the brief sound of a drawer, and when he came back out he handed John a whetstone. Dean wondered idly what else was in that kitchen drawer.

“A van is good, you know, because for my next trick, I was somehow going to get hold of a car. A van is better,” Alex was saying.

John had taken the stone with a nod, but made a face at Xander’s comment about the van. Sam did too, Dean was surprised to notice. “Not that much better, it’s kind of a minivan” John said. “Come to think of it, if we’re leaving tonight I’d better go and see what I can do to the engine while there’s still daylight. Do you have any tools?”

Xander blinked, “Um, for an engine?” He thought, then shrugged. “Only what’s in the box. Sorry.”

John grimaced again. Clearly the minivan was less than impressive, even without Dean trying to wrap his brain around the fact that it was a _minivan_. John stood and handed the whetstone to Dean, then headed over to peer into the box Alex had pulled the laptop out of.

“If it’s that bad, I can try to get hold of a car or something after all,” Alex said, sounding almost amused. “No guarantee it’ll be any better than the van, though. We’re a little strapped for handy cars around here.”

“No, no, don’t worry about it,” John said, and picked out a pair of pliers and a hammer out of the box. Not a good sign. “I’m sure we can manage. For a while, anyway. I’ll just...see what I can do.” He squared his shoulders and headed grimly towards the door, grabbing his coat on the way.

When he was gone, Alex raised his eyebrows. “Okay. He doesn’t need any help?”

Dean shrugged a little. “Nah, he’ll be fine.” He tossed the whetstone into one of the duffels, then tore his attention off Alex long enough to take in the weapons situation. Deciding it’d be good to actually be useful for a while, he started to pack the axes into the other duffel, slotting them together so they’d be as secure as possible. He did spare a moment to hope the van would actually get them to LA. Neither John or Sam seemed that fond of it, which probably meant it was crap.

He couldn’t stop himself from keeping Alex in his peripheral vision, though, keeping some of his attention on him, even though they were safe in the apartment. As Dean packed, Alex stood back to survey the stuff they’d gotten together. “Hey, Sam, have you been counting? Have we got enough to go around?” he asked.

“We’ve got a sword, an axe and a crossbow each,” Sam replied. “Plus almost a hundred bolts. Then there’s an extra axe, two more swords and one short sword.”

Alex seemed to count in his head for a moment. “I’ve got four machetes total, and you guys brought three shotguns, some shells, and two machetes, right?” he said, glancing at the table for Sam’s nod. “There’s enough holy water and plenty of stakes,” he muttered, voice trailing off as he thought some more. “I’ve got a flamethrower in the basement, but I’m just not sure it’s gonna be practical to take on the road. We might not even need it,” he said thoughtfully.

Dean almost sliced his hand open. His eyes flew up to Alex’s face. “You have a _flamethrower_?” He probably looked like he had hearts in his eyes, and he distantly heard Sam snort, but he didn’t care. A _flamethrower_. That was so freaking _cool_.

Alex looked at him fondly for a second, then dropped his eyes like he was embarrassed. “Yeah,” he said, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck. “I wanted to take it to Africa, but Giles couldn’t get me a permit to take it on the plane. So they shipped it here, and Faith said she put it in the storage locker downstairs when they bought the apartment.” His voice was almost wistful.

Some of the rush faded, and Dean paused. “Africa, huh?” he said, and it wasn’t quite a question.

“Yeah,” Xander replied, and when he didn’t meet Dean’s eyes, Dean knew it was deliberate. “When we woke all of the slayers last year, they were all over the world. So we had to go find them. Everyone got a different continent, and I got Africa. I wasn’t there for long, though. They moved some other operatives in.”

Dean really didn’t like the word ‘operative’, not for Alex, and he had no idea what to say. Luckily, Sam butted in, sounding intrigued. “Wow. What was it like over there?”

From the look on Alex’s face, that question actually hadn’t been lucky. Shit. It took him almost a full minute to respond, a minute while Dean watched him swallow hard and get a sour look on his face. When he answered, his voice was subdued. “It was. I don’t know. Difficult.”

“So that was it? Africa and the States for six months?” Dean asked casually, hoping it was a question that could lead to a change of subject for the better. Hopefully Sam would keep his mouth shut, too.

“No, actually. Before Africa, I was in Europe for a few months,” Alex said, expression carefully neutral. He still wasn’t meeting Dean’s eyes, though, which rang some alarm bells in Dean’s mind. “London for a while, and there were jobs in Rome, Amsterdam, Glasgow. And...er, yeah. Bucharest.”

Dean frowned. Why had Alex hesitated over the last one? Where the hell was Bucharest? Dean had missed something, and it felt like Alex was hiding something, or lying.

Sam, however, had not. “Bucharest? That’s in Romania, right? Did you go looking for gypsies?” he asked with a smile.

It was meant to be a joke, but Dean froze. “Romania?” he said acidly. _Goddamnit_.

Alex opened his mouth, then shut it, irritated and frowning. He cast a glare at Sam, like it was Sam’s fault Alex hadn’t expected him to know where Bucharest was. Sam obviously wised up to the fact that he’d accidentally opened a can of worms, though, and kept his head down.

Dean crossed his arms and faced Alex, pissed off and waiting. Alex stared back warily, then got an expression on his face like he couldn’t believe Dean wanted to get into this. “Oh, come on. It’s not like I had any choice about it,” he said.

“You think that makes it better?” Dean said, disbelieving. He couldn’t believe this. That son of a bitch, who the hell did he think he was?

Alex pressed his mouth into a thin line and didn’t reply. They stared at each other in a stand-off. Sam finally asked, “Uh, what’s in Romania?”

“Dracula,” Dean said darkly. Alex just frowned again, annoyed.

He could practically hear Sam’s head spin. “Dracula? Are you joking?”

“No,” Dean spat, still staring angrily at Alex.

“I. Didn’t. Have. A. Choice.” Alex insisted.

“I know you didn’t have a choice. I’m not pissed at you, I’m pissed at _him_ ,” and really, that should have been obvious to Alex, what the fuck?

Alex actually seemed _surprised_. _Again_. “Why? He was bored, and he wanted me to take a vacation.”

“A vacation with brainwash and _bugs_ ,” Dean pointed out.

“He didn’t make me eat bugs this time,” Alex said, missing the point completely.

“I can’t believe you’re defending him. Are you still brainwashed?” Dean demanded.

“No,” Alex denied. Then he said, “Well, only the usual residual stuff. But there were no bugs, and I actually remember almost all of it this time,” he said, like that was somehow supposed to make Dean less mad.

Dean couldn’t believe it. “You _remember all of it this time_? Is that supposed to be a good thing?”

Alex shrugged, far too unconcerned considering they were talking about _brainwashing_. “He taught me to play chess, I taught him to ride a motorcycle. It wasn’t too bad, as far as vacations go.” Dean wanted to throw his hands in the air in despair. How the hell could Alex be so casual about this? _Brainwashing_.

Sam’s gaze had been ricocheting between them. “Let me get this straight. Dracula actually exists? And...you have some kind of _relationship_ with him?” He seemed completely astounded.

“It isn’t a relationship,” Dean insisted, at the same time as Alex said defensively, “I can’t kill him. I’m pretty sure that’s step one of the brainwashing. But Buffy can’t kill him either, he just turns into fog and re-solidifies every time she dusts him.”

Alex took in Sam’s shocked expression, and glanced at Dean. Dean just folded his arms again and made sure his disapproval was obvious, and Alex rolled his eyes.

“Whatever. I don’t see him very often. It’s not like he keeps in touch.”

Dean snorted. “Yeah, _that’s_ why he’s an asshole.”

Alex glowered at him, but Dean was pretty sure he couldn’t back down on this one. Vampiric freaks who brainwashed people he loved were firmly in the bad column.

He ignored how the automatic way he thought _people he loved_ made something in his stomach flutter. He was not a girl.

Eventually, after a few abandoned attempts to say something, Alex rolled his eyes and visibly gave up. “Whatever,” he said again. “Flamethrower, anyone?”

It broke their stalemate, kind of. Dean was still pissed, but this was probably an argument he couldn’t win. It wasn’t Alex’s _fault_ , exactly, so hassling him about it probably wasn’t going to do any good.

Which didn’t really stop the itch in his trigger finger when he thought about Alex doing everything some bastard told him. God, if he ever got his hands on that undead freak... He suppressed the vampiricidal urges, trying to refocus his attention.

“I’m sure it’d be good to have, but only if you think it won’t, like, blow up the minivan. The suspension is really terrible, you know?” Sam was saying about the flamethrower.

“Is your _friend_ likely to show? Cause if he is, I think we should take the risk,” Dean said, aiming for casually hostile. “Buffy didn’t try a flamethrower on him yet, did she?” He was gambling, but he thought he could get away with it.

Alex just rolled his eyes again, but he seemed more amused than pissed at Dean’s suggestion. Which was the reaction Dean had been going for; as much as it irked Dean that Alex refused to take the brainwashing seriously, he really hadn’t meant to make a thing out of it. He didn’t want to _push_. For now, they could forget about it. Dean’d said his piece, Alex knew how he felt about it, and that was just about all he could do. That, and have a weapon handy if the asshole ever showed again.

Anyway, he didn’t want Alex seriously annoyed at him. So it was a relief that he wasn’t.

They worked in silence for a little while longer, packing and sorting stuff so it would fit into the duffels. For a while, it seemed like it was a classic case of too many weapons, not enough bag space, but Sam turned on the OCD and rearranged _everything_ , and in the end they got it all to work. They also decided not to bother with the flamethrower, which Dean thought was pretty sad, but Alex said that even though he hadn’t seen the van, the flamethrower case was on the big side and probably wouldn’t fit in too easily. And Sam vetoed strapping it to the roof.

Then finally, suddenly, they were done.

That’s when it really hit him. They were really leaving.

A sick feeling swam in Dean’s stomach. It felt like it’d only been a few minutes since Alex had hinted about this out on the fire escape, and back then, Dean had been so concentrated on not giving him a hard time, he hadn’t really let himself panic.

Now, though. Now there was something swooping in his belly, and the tension across his shoulders was building fast. It was all too fast, too fast to stop.

Then Alex touched his arm, giving him a sympathetic yet uncompromising look, and Dean nodded, swallowing hard. He shoved the frantic feeling away, or tried to ignore it as much as he could. He concentrated on working out which bag was heavier, and scowled when Sam took the heaviest ones with a pointed look in his direction. Dean shouldered the others, wanting to protest that he was fine.

Then he followed Alex out the door.

Dean stood in the hallway outside while Alex locked up. He wasn’t going to get nostalgic for this place anytime soon, but he was pretty sure he was standing on the exact spot where he’d first seen Alex, back when he’d still been half-sure he was caught in some hospital fever-dream and afraid he was hallucinating. It hadn’t stopped his heart from pounding, hadn’t stopped him wanting _desperately_ for it to be real.

And it was real. He wanted to stare at Alex again, but instead he looked off down the hallway. He was pretty sure this was the spot.

He’d been standing here when Alex punched him, too. And they’d been in this hallway when Alex tore his heart out, told him to leave.

Two days. Jesus. How was _that_ possible?

“Ready to go?” Alex asked softly. Sam had already taken off down the hall, Dean realised, heading for John, and Alex was waiting for Dean.

Dean felt uncertain and heavy, slow to respond, slow to move. He wanted to leave, but at the same time he didn’t. Everything had happened so fast.

“Yeah, I guess. Just...” He waved his free hand a little, no idea what to say.

“Yeah,” Alex agreed sympathetically, apparently understanding the gesture. As Dean looked over, Alex’s expression changed from eager to hunted and back again, like he wanted to get out on the road but didn’t like what he thought he’d find.

He squared his shoulders, though, and Dean copied him. Time to stop being such a pussy. He followed a few steps behind Alex.

“We’ll be fine,” he said, well aware he was lying. Lying like a _rug_. “And if we’re not.” He kept walking but shut his mouth with a snap. He wasn’t sure why he’d even started to say that, what the hell was wrong with him?

“If we’re not, what?” Alex asked, sounding interested and almost amused, glancing back over his shoulder at Dean.

Dean couldn’t finish the thought out loud, but he sent a dark look in Alex’s direction. If they weren’t fine, he’d be sorry. But hopefully if Alex wasn’t alright, Dean would be dead.

 _Over my dead body_ , he reminded himself. Alex looked briefly disturbed, but Dean didn’t care. The promise was important, and reassuring. He’d do whatever it took.

They took the stairs, John came into view on the street outside, and when Alex opened the door of the building, Dean breathed deeply in the rush of cold air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from a song by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.


	27. Heading for the Sun

To Xander’s untrained eye, John seemed to have made some progress on the engine in the short time that he’d been out on the street. He’d managed to get a dirty rag from somewhere, and he was doing something that involved the pair of pliers, the mysterious rag, and an equally mysterious bottle of unidentifiable liquid. Xander didn’t look too closely; cars _really_ weren’t his thing.

Dean grimaced at the minivan when he saw it – even Xander thought it was very soccer-mom – but he helped pack the duffels in the back without complaint. John slammed the hood down after a few more minutes, and Xander realised that they were actually, no-stopping-it-now about to leave.

And he almost had a panic attack about how he was actually doing this, because _holy fuck_ it could go wrong in a spectacular number of ways, and what the hell was he thinking?

But then he heard her voice behind him and froze, a different kind of panic racing through him.

“Harris? What’s going on?”

Faith.

 _Shit_.

He managed to unfreeze himself and turn around. She looked suspicious, but not that much more than she always did. And yeah, she wasn’t mad yet, but _God_ she was going to be. She was a wrench in his plans that he really should have anticipated.

“Faith. Hey. I was going to call you,” he said, stalling for time.

Unfortunately, the fact that he was buying time to think was too obvious, and seemed to set off alarm bells. After a pause, during which she studied him way too closely for comfort, she asked, “Who are these guys?”

Xander felt a line of tension pull tight, from the base of his skull all the way down across his shoulders. He cleared his throat. “This is John, Sam and Dean Winchester.”

There was a second of silence, then a visible change in her expression when she placed the name – she went straight from suspicious and puzzled to _furious_. “What?” Her voice was icy, and, well, shit. _Shit_.

“Winchesters,” she said, before he could respond. She walked a little closer, an intent and frankly dangerous smile on her face. “Well, hell, Xander, if you wanted help taking out the trash, all you had to do was ask,” she said meanly, and she had her hands on her hips like she was ready for action.

Xander winced. “No, Faith, it’s not. That’s not what’s going on.”

She glanced at him, surprised, then turned her glare back on the Winchesters. “What is going on, then?” She was studying them, now, taking a closer look at the van, and he hoped to God she hadn’t seen them put the weapons bags in the trunk.

He hesitated, then cleared his throat. “You know the demon that bailed me up in the warehouse the other night? It was theirs. They came here to take care of it.” That was probably a good start.

“Bit late,” she snorted, and her derisive tone obviously sparked Dean’s defences.

“Hey, we got here as soon as we could. I know it’s only been two days, but we—“

“Two days?” Faith snapped, cutting off his protest. Her attention zeroed back in on Xander, and _shit_ , he thought bitterly. One of these days he was going to punch Dean in the face again, and this time he wouldn’t regret it.

Setting his mouth in a grim line and hoping she wouldn’t punch him when he touched her, Xander took hold of her arm and tried to pull her away from the Winchesters, away into a private conversation.

Faith didn’t hit him, but she didn’t move either, and he could practically see rage building over her head like a thundercloud. Her glare was frightening – thank _God_ she wasn’t saying anything – but the last thing he wanted to do was talk to her about this, argue about the cemetery, in front of _them_.

Xander held his ground, silently insisting, and finally she caved. She looked like she wanted to hit him again, but she let him drag her down the street a little way before she wrenched her arm out of his grasp. “You lied to me,” she hissed.

He glanced nervously back at Dean – they were barely out of earshot, he’d be lucky if Dean couldn’t hear every word – and made sure his voice was lower when he replied. “I didn’t,” he denied.

“Bullshit. You didn’t tell me he was here, and don’t even pretend he wasn’t the reason you freaked out last night. What the fuck is going on?” Her voice was snapping and furious, and loud enough that he knew she didn’t care if they overheard.

He hunched nervously, but even though she’d asked him a question, she didn’t let him answer. “You promised you’d be careful, you promised right to my face that it was _nothing_ , and you were _lying_.”

For a moment, all he could do was stare at her, shocked enough to forget about their audience.

She was right. He’d lied, was _still_ lying, to almost everyone. And he felt like shit about it.

The guilt must have been written across his face, because he didn’t even have to answer. She made an angry, incoherent noise, and crossed her arms. “Are you going with them?” she demanded. “They’re going after that demon, are you going with them?

More guilt. It took him a moment to answer, and when he did, his voice was hoarse. “Yeah, I am.” It was all he could say. He’d never felt more ashamed of himself.

“ _Why_?” The look on her face was equal parts impatient and disappointed. Then she added, “For Christ’s sake, Harris, if you really want to do yourself in, there are plenty of demons on the hellmouth for you to throw yourself at. Let them go after this one. Maybe they’ll even come back alive.”

And that hit about thirty nerves at once. Not only his own fears about the state of his brain; the idea that Dean would go off and never come back was far too terrifying to contemplate. Shame turned to anger with a speed that would have impressed him if he wasn’t too busy being pissed off. “Hey,” he snapped, furious. But she didn’t let him get going.

“Do actually just expect me to let you go like this? I told you to take a goddamn breather. That was the deal,” she insisted angrily. “I didn’t just mean the fucking vamp nest, I meant _everything_.”

“It _is_ a breather, Faith, I’m getting a change of scene,” he replied, still angry. “And we might have had a deal, but you’re not actually in charge of my life, here.” She wasn’t, no matter what she knew about him.

“No, I’m just the only one who knows how you’ve been acting, and how close you’ve come to the goddamn line. And how this guy you think you’re leaving town with has you freaking out so bad you’re _hallucinating_.”

Something in her tone of voice made him pause, made the anger recede a little. He studied her, saw the panic in the tightness around her eyes, the line of her mouth. She was afraid. Of him? Maybe _for_ him. He took a deep breath, unwilling to let go of his anger but unable to hold on to it in the face of that. She was worried about him, he reminded himself, and he hadn’t exactly given her any reason not to be.

“I know how it looks,” he began. All he had to do was placate her enough to get out of town, to get away. He’d been so damn good at coming up with bullshit lately, surely he could do this. One more tightrope walk, then he could leave.

“Do you?” she was saying, disbelieving.

“Kind of,” he persisted. “I know it looks like it was all about him, but it wasn’t.” He paused, then added, “He was...he was part of why I freaked out last night, but it was mostly the First.”

“Okay,” she said, after a pause, apparently taking that on board. But her glare remained as steely as ever as she said, “So why don’t you explain the part where, if he’s even _part_ of the reason, you’re _leaving town with him_?”

He hesitated again, stalling for time enough to come up with something. He was drawing a blank, though, and hoped it wasn’t showing on his face. “It’s complicated,” he said, and wanted to wince at how lame that was.

She stared at him stonily, and when she spoke again, her voice was scarily calm. “Harris, I swear, if you don’t want me to just knock you out and take you out of here right now, just to keep you safe from this guy—“

“It won’t help,” he interrupted almost involuntarily, wincing at the self-disgust in his voice. “Pathetic as it makes me, I am so far gone over this that I don’t think ditching it all now is going to help me at all.” He broke off, afraid the stream of honesty would just continue to fall out of his mouth, and clenched his teeth and looked away. So that was what happened when his bullshit finally failed.

He couldn’t bring himself to look at Faith, couldn’t bear to see her reaction to that little gem. She was silent for a long moment, anyway, and he stared down the street at nothing, trying to ignore the sick feeling crawling under his skin.

He knew she was studying him, though, and he wasn’t altogether surprised when she finally said, “So far gone over _him_ , you mean?”

“Yeah, but that’s not really news,” he admitted, swallowing hard and still bitter. Then he said, “I’m trying to work out what to do about it. Whether it’s a good idea to...to start it all up again.” If the bullshit wasn’t going to work, he might as well try some truth.

 _Some_ , not all.

“Jesus,” she muttered, and he managed to look at her again just as she finally looked away from him. She seemed disappointed, if marginally less angry than she had a moment ago, and she actually pinched the bridge of her nose as she said, “You’ve got the self-preservation instincts of a friggin’ piece of _cheese_ , Harris.”

“I know,” he agreed, depressed.

“Okay,” she said, gathering herself and visibly making the effort to remain calm. “So you’ve decided to give wonder boy another chance, fine. But if you’re that set on leaving town with these freaks, please tell me you've at least _told someone_.”

“Giles knows. He's been helping us find a weapon to use against the demon.”

“And he's in favour of this shit?” she said, incredulous.

“Sort of,” he shrugged. “He agrees that it's the best option out of a whole bunch of bad ones.” And he’d circled back to tired. Tired of being questioned, anyway. Yes, his entire life was depressing and unsatisfactory. Yes, he knew he was crazy. No, he didn’t give a shit why he did the things he did, he was just damn well going to do them.

“Yeah, because he doesn't know you almost got filleted by a zombie yesterday,” Faith muttered.

“Look, this is my decision, okay?” he said, harsher than he meant to. “Whatever happens, if something goes wrong, it's on me.”

“Bullshit,” she snapped back, angry again. “ _I know_. I'm the only one who knows what’s really been going on with you, and if I let you go with them and something happens, it’s gonna be on me.”

He bit back the automatic reply, reminding himself that the point was to get him the hell out of here, and making her angry probably wasn’t the way to achieve that. Then the fear in her voice registered, and he felt like an asshole again. She was worried about him.

“It's my decision, Faith,” he said again, softer this time, hoping she’d listen.

After a moment to steel himself, he tried a new tack, one that was more or less honest and slightly more hopeful than most. “It isn’t that I’m acting rashly, or getting pressured, or whatever. And I’m not just going out there for the demon.” He hesitated, then steeled his nerves again. “I feel like...like this could change things for me, _he_ could change things for me. Or at least I’ll get closure, one way or the other. And I think I need that.”

Yet another deep breath, and he said, “I can't stay like I've been. I can't have another year like the one I've just had. I need to get better.” Too much honesty, and once again he couldn’t bear to look at her, see her reaction. It was the closest he'd come to admitting out loud that there was something seriously wrong with him.

It occurred to him that it was also another promise, in a way, and his stomach dived. Much, much too honest.

It felt like time stretched, as he waited for her to respond. “I don't get it,” she finally said, concerned and frowning. “I thought he was making you worse.” She wasn’t angry, at least, and she was listening.

Xander shook his head, wondering if he could even answer that. He didn’t really know why it was the way it was, that was half the problem. After a moment to think, he said, “When I said that he was why I freaked out, what I meant was... When he came back, it was like my eyes got opened, I guess.”

He frowned. That wasn’t quite right. “Seeing Dean made me really look at what it’d been like without him,” he said slowly. “But then it was like I could suddenly see everything else that's been wrong, too. I’ve been paying attention to it all for the first time, where before I was just pretending it didn’t happen, or didn’t exist.”

When he looked up nervously, she was studying him again, frowning slightly. “And that's better?”

He shrugged. “You can't fix what you refuse to see.” _Even when you can see it, you still might not be able to fix it_ , he thought, feeling bitter and strangely hopeless.

Another pause while she mulled over what he'd said. “But what does it have to do with the First?”

He swallowed the bile that instantly rose in his throat. But then he took another deep, long breath, and tried to put the thinking he’d been doing on the fire escape into words. “Because it’s still been with me, all this time, and I didn’t even realise it. When Dean came back, and when I got shocked into thinking about this past year...” He hesitated, trying to find the words.

“It all came to the surface, I guess. Everything I hadn’t been dealing with. What the First did, it’s been with me this whole time without me even realising, and last night.” Another deep breath. He didn’t know if he could finish that sentence, and cast around for another. “Dean kind of brought it all out, but it was there anyway. So last night wasn’t really his fault, you know?”

Faith had been listening closely, a concerned frown on her face. As he explained, she looked like she understood, though, something Xander was almost surprised to find himself feeling grateful for that. When he finished, she had a slightly grudging look on her face as she said, “Yeah, okay, no more bitching at the boy toy. Even if he’s a douchebag,” she added under her breath. Before he could interject, she said, “Does that really mean leaving with them? Tell him if he really wants it, he's gotta stick around.”

And, against all odds, Xander wanted to smile. “It's okay. It’s not great, but it’ll be okay.” And for a single, brief moment, he almost believed it.

He thought briefly of getting Giles to tell Faith about the fact that the demon might come to the hellmouth, but then he realised it could be a way out. “The demon knows my name, anyway. If it remembers that the internet exists, it could find me here just as easily as anywhere.” At her wary look, he added, “We’re gonna get Willow on to that, change the records on the apartment or something. But it’s better if I leave town.”

She nodded, and he tried to muster some determination as he said, “Besides, this thing is after me. It tried to kill me, and I don’t want to just sit back and let someone else deal with it. I want to try to kill it right back.”

Faith rolled her eyes. But there was a slight smile on her face, and she seemed to be back within her usual levels of annoyed-with-him. He hoped it wasn’t pre-emptive, but he thought he could just about count this crisis averted.

Then she glared at the Winchesters for a second, watching as they shifted uncomfortably. When Xander followed her gaze, he noticed that Dean wasn’t even making the effort to pretend like he wasn’t staring at them and watching their every move, even as he shifted nervously under Faith's examination.

“I’m going to call Giles and demand updates,” Faith suddenly proclaimed. “And you can expect phone calls from me, I don’t care how asleep you might be. I’m going to keep tabs on you for this, Harris.” She sounded stern, and still angry, but she was letting him go and that was all that mattered.

There was, however, enough implied threat in her tone that Xander didn’t really want to think about what would happen if he missed a call.

“Sounds fair,” he said, and grinned at her, even though he knew it was pushing his luck and probably risking his life. She stared at him for a second, startled, and he couldn’t quite place the expression that flickered over her face before it was gone.

She aimed one last, fierce glare at the Winchesters, and peripherally Xander saw both Sam and John flinch. Then, Faith redirected her glare to him, reducing the fierceness only slightly. She nodded at him, repeating the order, “Call me later. Daily.”

Then she turned and walked away.

Xander watched her saunter unhurriedly down the street, and didn’t let himself react at all until she’d turned the corner at the end of the block and disappeared from sight. Then the tension rushed out of him and his hands started to shake. His knees almost buckled as well; he felt like he’d barely escaped with all his limbs.

Christ. He felt like he’d handled her fairly well, considering how that conversation could have gone. Considering that it hadn’t even felt like ‘handling’ so much as crisis prevention. He’d kept his calm, for the most part, and only had to strip away a few layers of sanity so she could see enough of the crazy underneath. Enough because she already knew it was there anyway, and he had to convince her he was dealing with it.

In retrospect, that whole conversation had been terrifying. If he’d fucked it up, right now he’d probably be on his way to a straight jacket, and the thought made him sick.

Then he turned to look back down the street at the minivan and the men clustered around it, at Dean in particular. Was this really the better option?

What he’d told Faith was true, and probably the closest he’d come to answering that question. Telling her had just been cementing it, making it realer.

He couldn’t survive another year like the one he’d just had. It was one of the few things he was sure of.

And even though it made absolutely no sense whatsoever, he really believed Dean was somehow the key to changing it.

 _Dean doesn’t love you, Alex_.

As much as the words hurt, _because_ they hurt, he knew he needed to accept them. Whether that was by believing them or proving them wrong, he needed to move past them somehow. And Dean’s presence was the only way to do that, even if that hurt him too.

And no matter which way it went, Xander needed to make the decision. Despite his own feelings, despite what Dean said he wanted, Xander needed to decide what he could take, what he wanted to have. He needed to start being honest, and he needed to make the choice himself, no matter how hard it was.

It was the only way he’d ever lay all of this to rest. The only way he’d ever close it off, or move on from it. The only way he’d ever make it stop.

So, the road. He started walking, one foot in front of the other, slowly towards the minivan. Dean watched him take every step, and Xander could feel him scanning his face for cues. When he was close enough, Dean asked, “You okay?”

Xander looked at him for a moment, probably longer than necessary. He ignored the others and watched Dean wait for him. “Sure,” he said easily, finally. “I’m okay.”

He stepped past Dean and swung himself up into the car, sliding across to sit by the window on the other side. He stared out, seeing nothing, as others got in after him and the minivan shook with slamming doors.

“Alright, then. Ready to go?” John said from the driver’s seat, apparently talking to no-one in particular, because he started the car without waiting for an answer. Something in the engine whined a little as they took off, and Xander was suddenly very aware of Dean’s hand on the seat between them. He wanted to reach out and touch skin.

He didn’t. He kept his eyes on the view out the window, kept his shoulders set and his mouth firmly closed as they drove through the Cleveland streets and every chance he had to back out of this crazy idea disappeared from view.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from a song by Alexisonfire.


	28. Coda

Faith wandered down the street, deep in thought. She tried to feel like she'd made a huge mistake, tried to convince herself that she should go back and chase after Harris. She tried to tell herself that he needed to be saved, that this latest fucking crazy thing he was doing was just more of the same, more of the death wish it seemed he'd developed.

But what stopped her was the look in his eyes. It had flickered on and off, only come through sometimes, probably depending on what he was thinking about. It had been strongest when he'd gotten pissed at her for suggesting his boy toy fuck off and die, but it was there.

He looked alive again. Which was cliche as fuck, but the only way she could really describe it. And when she compared it to how he'd looked in Morocco, in Amsterdam, the difference was unbelievable.

And it was enough to convince her to let him go. Only just enough; she was still worried he was crazy, or that her instincts were going to wind up biting her in the ass when he got himself killed anyway.

But it was enough.


End file.
